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Montrose To Receive Excellence Awards

By John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director emeritus

September 16, 2015

Montrose High School, the MHSAA School Broadcast Program of the Year for the 2014-15 school year, will be honored at halftime of the Durand at Montrose football game on Friday. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.

Montrose has won the Program of the Year honor in each of the first two years the MHSAA, in partnership with Herff Jones, has sponsored the School Broadcast Program Excellence Awards. In addition to repeating as the top school in the program, Montrose captured first place honors in three of the five individual categories.

Montrose took first place in Best Play-By-Play (Eric Vandefifer, Trey Schmitz  – Boys Basketball game vs. Lake Fenton), Best Single Camera Production with PlayOn! Sports graphics (Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley, Eric Vandefifer – Girls Soccer match vs. Hemlock), and the top two spots for Best Use of PlayOn! Sports Graphics (Eric Vandefifer, Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley, Griffin Powell, Bradley Payne – Boys Basketball game vs. Goodrich; and Eric Vandefifer, Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley – Girls Basketball game vs. Lake Fenton). The program also took a second place for Best Produced Commercial/Feature (Alyssa Bernard, Amanda Ramsey, Alicia Town, Allia Town – Sexual Assault PSA) and a third for Best Multicamera Production (Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley, Amanda Ramsey, Nathan Brown, Eric Vandefifer, Brandon Smith – Genesee Area Conference Girls Competitive Cheer Finals). 

The presentation will be shown live on MHSAA.tv as one of a number of live events being streamed online this year by School Broadcast Program members.

In its seventh year, the School Broadcast Program gives members an opportunity to showcase excellence in their schools by  creating video programming of athletic and non-athletic events, with students gaining skills in announcing, camera operation, directing/producing and graphics. 

The program also gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions.  

All sporting events – live or delayed – are available on a subscription basis only for their first 72 hours online. They become available for free, on-demand viewing approximately 72 hours following their completion.

Here’s the schedule of School Broadcast Program members planning to stream competition this week for broadcast at MHSAA.tv  (As of Sept. 14):

The SBP programming schedule is expected to expand now that school is in session across the state. A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA website.

Schools interested in becoming a part of the School Broadcast Program should contact John Johnson at the MHSAA Office.

This week's MHSAA.tv highlights package includes clips from the South Haven/Plainwell and Lake Fenton/Montrose football games and Chassell/Calumet volleyball match.

Pixellot Productions On Rise

September 19, 2018

By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties

A year ago, Pixellot – the automated production solution for schools wishing to stream live video of their athletic events on the NFHS Network and MHSAA.tv – was in use at six schools across Michigan.

With the new school year underway, nearly two dozen schools are actively streaming events using Pixellot, with half of those schools streaming indoor and outdoor events. Several schools have more than two Pixellot units in place.

“Schools are finding that Pixellot provides a great opportunity to get a lot of their games out to their fans in a way they could never achieve,” said Mark Uyl, executive director of the MHSAA.  “We have some schools which are using a mix of their traditional, student-staffed, School Broadcast Program efforts along with Pixellot to be able to add subvarsity coverage; and schools going exclusively with Pixellot with installations at multiple venues.”

Pixellot units use from two to four High Definition cameras that cover the length of the playing surface and then focus on the ball and player movement to deliver the action. The unit communicates with the scoreboard to insert a time and score graphic on the screen. Ambient audio is picked up by the device, but the commentary of the public address announcer or the radio style play-by-play of an in-person announcing team also can be patched in.

All that has to be done from a school’s perspective is type in the event schedule and promote the fact that the games are available on MHSAA.tv. Pixellot does the rest. The unit also can be set up to isolate a camera on a fixed location, which allows for activities like cheer and wrestling to be streamed.

Schools actively engaged in Pixellot productions now include: Ann Arbor Greenhills, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Brighton, Calumet, Dollar Bay, Frankenmuth, Freeland, Fremont, Grand Blanc, Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian, Harrison, Howell, Kalamazoo Christian, Macomb Lutheran North, Manchester, Norway, Novi, Otisville-LakeVille, Ovid-Elsie, Plainwell, Saginaw Heritage, Saline, Stevensville Lakeshore, Warren DeLaSalle and Williamston. Schools using indoor and outdoor units include Cranbrook Kingswood, Frankenmuth, Freeland, Grand Blanc, Howell, Manchester, Norway, Novi, Ovid-Elsie, Plainwell, Saginaw Heritage, Saline and Stevensville Lakeshore. Additional schools will have their Pixellot units coming online soon.

More than 70 percent of the programming taking place this week on MHSAA.tv will be Pixellot productions, featuring a football game Friday evening with two of the top-ranked Division 1 teams facing off for the top spot in the Saginaw Valley League’s Red division. Grand Blanc hosts Davison at 7 p.m. Both teams are 4-0 overall and 2-0 in league play, tied with Lapeer for first place.

Here’s this week’s MHSAA.tv schedule of video streams being produced by School Broadcast Program members and the NFHS Network:

Tuesday - Sept. 18

Wednesday - Sept. 19 

Thursday - Sept. 20

Friday - Sept. 21

Saturday - Sept. 22

Monday - Sept. 24

Tuesday - Sept. 25

All sporting events – live or delayed - are available on a subscription basis only for their first 72 hours online. They become available for free, on-demand viewing approximately 72 hours following their completion.

NFHS Network subscriptions begin at $9.95 a month. Subscribers will have access to all live video and streaming statistics across the country. All content becomes available for free, on-demand viewing 72 hours after being shown live. School Broadcast Program participants also will be selling Season and Annual Passes at a discounted rate. A portion of every subscription sold by a school goes to benefit its program. 

Highlights of games broadcast during the past week by MHSAA School Broadcast Program contributors feature a pair of close football contests – Marquette’s 36-35 overtime win over Escanaba and Howell topping Novi, 21-17 – and a volleyball match with Lake Orion defeating Oxford, 3-0.

Highlights can be found each week on the MHSAA.tv website, the home page of the MHSAA Website, and the MHSAASports Channel on YouTube.

A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA website.