Tufts is the only college or university in New England (and one of only a handful in the country, across all NCAA divisions) that has an organization to self-produce live (and archived) audio and video webcasts for as many as thirteen varsity sports. Since our inception in early 2002, we have presented over 200 webcasts. That takes a lot of hard work, and we need your help to keep providing this valuable service.

The areas in which we need help are outlined below. Any amount of help — given in any area, in any regular amount of time — would be just great.

[Important note: you do NOT need to be a Tufts undergraduate to be a member of JumboCast. We would prefer that you had some connection to Tufts — specifically, alumni/ae are very welcome — but all you really need is an interest in Tufts sports, some free time, and a high level of dependability to consider joining JumboCast.]

Broadcasters
Obviously, in order for JumboCast to cover games and matches from across the Tufts sports spectrum, to conduct interviews, to host talk shows, and for all the other programming we want to eventually provide, we need men and women at the microphones and cameras. You don’t need to have done it before — the staff of JumboCast has about 30 years of combined broadcasting experience, and we’d love to work with you while you get the hang of it.

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Not everybody wants to be, or is comfortable being in front of the mic. If you fall into that category, there are still plenty of ways for you to help JumboCast:

Camera operators
Now that JumboCast is providing video with almost every webcast we present, we need somebody to be runnning those cameras. As with everything else at JumboCast, experience is great, but not necessary — it’s pretty easy to keep the camera trained on the game, and help JumboCast continue the tremendous service of videocasting Tufts athletics. We’ll show you what to do, and even wire you into the audio system so you can listen to the game while you work!

Streaming media experts
We need people — with experience or simply with interest — to master the intricacies of our current and future streaming media platforms. Currently, we are using service from AudioVideoWeb to host servers for our streaming needs. We must correctly point to those servers, and then also point our viewers there as well. This is all done utilizing the internet throughout Tufts University, which can sometimes create obstacles. Sound interesting? Then come help us!

Audio and video engineers
New for 2005-06: JumboCast is pleased to have access to some terrific new multi-camera live switching/graphics generation/streaming media hardware. It’s incredibly powerful, and — allegedly — simple to use. We have the abilitiy to record in high definition, utilize green screens, and perform instant replays. There is the possibility that JumboCast footage will be used during games to help determine correct calls from the officals.

Web programmers and graphic artists
The first version of the JumboCast web site was done fairly quickly, and although it is serviceable, and in some ways even kinda nice, and the person who did it is fairly proud of it and you’d be wise not to insult it, even he admits that there is room for improvement. We have more features that we’d like to add, we need some programming help (PHP and MySQL experience would be a huge plus!), and we need more graphic elements. Can you help us?