Bringing Big-League Replay to Local Sports: How Clear Life Media Elevates Streaming with Blackmagic Design

For Clear Life Media, delivering high-quality sports broadcasts is more than just hitting "go live"—it's about creating a full-fledged viewing experience. With a thriving MMA and high school football streaming channel, as well as a newly built 2,000-square-foot production studio and a fiber-based mobile broadcast trailer, the company has expanded its capabilities using Blackmagic Design’s latest tools. By integrating Blackmagic Replay and DaVinci Resolve Replay Editor into its workflow, Clear Life Media has enhanced its productions, making instant replays accessible without the high costs traditionally associated with live sports coverage.

In this Q&A, we speak with Curt Casper, owner and head of production at Clear Life Media, about how Blackmagic Design’s technology is transforming their broadcasts—allowing them to compete for major state and national events, including Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boys and Elevate Fight Night 5.

PH: Clear Life Media has recently expanded with a new studio and a fiber-based broadcast trailer. What inspired this growth, and how has it impacted your production capabilities?

Curt Casper: Clear Life Media created our new studio because we ran our business out of my apartment. There were a lot of limitations and having a studio space would be a huge advancement for our company. Furthermore, in our area, there were no studio spaces available. The closest ones were in Houston which would be 30-45 minutes away. This made it an easy decision for us.

We built the broadcast trailer because we were doing a ton of broadcasting events. We had an SDI fly pack and there were a ton of limitations to it. When it came to doing live sports we were running 2 SDI cables per camera and other SDI cables for projectors. Often we found it to be problematic, especially for the length of the runs. Furthermore, the fly pack would have to be set up in the venue and there would be little or no privacy, noise protection, etc. The setup times were draining on our crew. Lastly, being in Texas you never know what the weather is going to do. We were running our football broadcasts under a tent and that just became too difficult; even having our tent get knocked over by the wind.

So with our broadcast trailer, we can show up at an event and flip a switch and everything works. The fiber allows us to have longer runs and connection options.

PH: Your studio and mobile unit are built entirely around a Blackmagic Design workflow. What were the key factors in choosing Blackmagic products for your infrastructure?

Curt Casper: The biggest reason for us to pick Blackmagic Design was reliability and affordability. We have used Blackmagic for years and knew that it would work. They have the strongest ecosystem. While there are other options where you have an all-in-one device, for our professional broadcasts we wanted to have crew members worrying about their one task. Blackmagic allows us to have multiple crew members running different tasks which helps give us a more professional and clean broadcast. From cameras to switchers to video routers there is nothing out there that works so seamlessly together.

PH: How have Blackmagic Cloud Store and Cloud Pod improved your team’s collaboration, especially when working across different locations?

Curt Casper: We are new to the Blackmagic Cloud Store and Cloud Pod game. We bought our first one when we installed the replay system. This allows us to take our camera feeds on the HyperDeck Studio HD Mini and use them in Davinci Resolve.

Additionally, we use the Cloud Pod to help with file management. We have 2 2-TB SSDs on the Cloud Pod. The replay goes to one of the drives and we use for storing clips. During the event, we have sometimes up to 3 highlight cameras. These individuals are capturing content to help make highlights for after the broadcast. Sometimes our events are 8 hours long and that can be a lot of content. So we have a computer in the venue where they are uploading the content. We then have an editor in the venue either sorting the footage and also starting the editing. The nice part about having this on the Cloud Pod is we can have multiple computers working on this at a time and then we know it's all in one location. This makes it easy to move the footage to our storage when the trailer arrives back at our studio.

PH: You started using Blackmagic Replay in the fall of 2024. Can you walk us through how it has changed your live sports broadcasts?

Curt Casper: We always strive to match our broadcasts to those of professionals and one of the biggest pieces we were missing in our broadcasts was a replay, we couldn’t replay the killer knockout live or the touchdown. It did hurt our broadcasts not to have those features. Now that we have a replay we can tell a better story of the broadcasts.

PH: Replay has traditionally been cost-prohibitive for many smaller productions. How has Blackmagic Replay allowed Clear Life Media to elevate its broadcasts while staying within budget?

Curt Casper: The Blackmagic Design replay is fantastic because it uses systems and products that we already had in our setup. When looking at other replay systems the cost and feasibility of our trailer were unattainable. Additionally, Blackmagic Replay works on Apple Macs, which we only have in our trailer. So with a computer, Cloud Pod, HyperDeck Studio HD Mini, and UltraStudio 4K Mini, you get one of the best replay systems available.

PH: How does DaVinci Resolve Replay Editor streamline your post-production process? Are there any specific features that have been game-changers for you?

Curt Casper: The best part of the Replay system is that because it's in Davinci Resolve we can export any part of our broadcasts to go to social media. Have a killer knockout? Touchdown? All you have to do after the replay runs is insert it into the timeline and click export. It's crazy how fast we can get the content to our social media. For our PPV events, this is great because it helps us show the event on social media and drive people to come and watch the full fight. Which helps us make more money.

PH: Your ‘Game of the Week’ series provides more than just game coverage by including interviews and in-depth storytelling. How does your workflow help bring these stories to life?

This is in my opinion the best part of the Game of the Week. It becomes more than just a broadcast of the football game. We interview students in the different programs at the school from welding to cheerleaders and even do a Student of the Week. We love doing this because it gives students who often don’t get recognized for their accomplishments to be highlighted! Plus, they are going to be watching or having their parents watch so it helps increase our audience. We run these and also commercials for our sponsors using our video playback system On The Air Video. The best part about this software is that it ties directly into our ATEM Constellation HD. Any time the “video” source is fired it automatically plays the cued-up video. This makes for an extremely efficient and professional broadcast because there is no delay from the start of the video and it going to air. Because of this integration, we know that the story that we have worked to tell is going to be shown.

PH: Clear Life Media now covers high-profile events like Golden Boy Promotions and Elevate Fight Night. How did the addition of replay influence your ability to secure these opportunities?

Curt Casper: It's funny, even with everything we have done over the past 5 years as a business and the professional-looking broadcasts we produced, we had potential clients deny our services because we couldn’t provide replay. In sports broadcasting, replay is one of the key features that can land bigger clients. Because of Blackmagic Design, we can now do those bigger broadcasts.

PH: What are some of the biggest technical challenges you face when streaming live sports, and how do Blackmagic tools help you overcome them?

Curt Casper: The biggest technical challenge that we face in live sports is utilizing new venues. Every venue is different, but as the production team, we still have to deliver a broadcast. With Blackmagic Design I know that no matter what venue we arrive at with our Blackmagic Design Trailer we can work in almost any venue. We have done broadcasts inside of an elementary school cafeteria to the Toyota Center in downtown Houston. Knowing that we have the tools in place to pull off any broadcast makes our life as a production company so much easier.

PH: As technology continues to evolve, how do you see Clear Life Media growing in the next few years? Are there any new innovations from Blackmagic Design that you’re excited to explore?

Curt Casper: There are a ton of options that we are currently exploring to grow Clear Life Media but the biggest one we are looking at is adding a second broadcast trailer. Often we run into scheduling conflicts where we may have multiple broadcasts happening in different locations. Or where we are doing a broadcast in back-to-back days. One time in December we had 4 different broadcasts. For this upcoming weekend, we will have a broadcast in Dallas and then the next day in Austin. Having two trailers would  While we have a back flypack for secondary streams it is always best to utilize the trailer. Blackmagic Design will be the ecosystem we will be using in this trailer.

Additionally, we would love to make a few more upgrades to our current trailer. We currently aren’t doing 4k broadcasts because our fiber system limits us to 1080p30. We are looking to upgrade this in the next few months. Which will help us deliver even better-looking broadcasts. Additionally, we would like to upgrade our URSA Broadcast G2s with different Blackmagic components including displays, and fiber adapters (currently we use a Blackmagic SDI to fiber converter, the fiber system on the cameras would be awesome!)

Also, we are very intrigued by Blackmagic’s new URSA Cine line of cameras and how we can incorporate them into our daily operations for filmmaking.

I’m excited to see the next announcements from Blackmagic. We always watch the Blackmagic YouTube channel when new announcements are made. We then try to see how we can utilize those products in our systems.

PH: For other production companies looking to upgrade their workflows, what advice would you give about integrating Blackmagic Design solutions?

Curt Casper: I think the best advice to give to someone looking to upgrade their workflow would be to try to “future-proof” to the best of your availability. When we built the trailer we knew that doing 1080p30 wouldn’t be the final format. So we knew that if we could get a 4k capable system then we should make that purchase. Because it's going to be a lot easier to upgrade in the future. Blackmagic Design has a full lineup of gear that can help achieve almost anything! We have looked at other products and it's just important to remember the cost and feasibility of the ecosystem are pretty much unmatched.