Why Streaming Redundancy Is the Most Undervalued Skill in Broadcast Engineering
After building failover systems for Meta, Autograph, and global live events -- here's what every broadcast engineer needs to know about designing for failure.
Don Whitmore is a broadcast engineer and executive producer pioneering streaming redundancies, failure-point testing, and reliability engineering for the digital world.
Don Whitmore spent over a decade at the frontier of live streaming and broadcast engineering -- from producing world-first live streams from the International Space Station to architecting streaming infrastructure for Meta's consumer products.
His career spans Pixel Corps, Meta, and Autograph.io, where he pioneered streaming redundancies, failure-point testing, and reliability engineering for digital platforms. He's designed low-weight, highly redundant live streaming systems for events ranging from the World Climate Summit in Paris to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
Now Don is transitioning from hands-on engineering to thought leadership -- writing, speaking, and consulting to help the broadcast industry navigate the next wave of transformation.
Deep technical knowledge across the full broadcast engineering stack -- from infrastructure to production to strategy.
Pioneered streaming redundancy architectures, failure-point testing, and failover systems for live events at global scale. Expert in multi-path transmission via fiberoptic, satellite, IP, and cellular.
Multi-camera systems, PTZ engineering, video encoding/transcoding (FFmpeg, AWS Elemental), low-latency pipeline design, and codec optimization for broadcast-quality streaming.
Authored SOPs for VR production workflows at Meta. Produced VR capture for major political conventions and UFC. Deep experience with 360° camera systems and mixed reality production.
L2/L3 networking configurations, layer-2 upgrade design for render farms, wireframe documentation, and anti-ransomware infrastructure. Expert in building resilient network topologies for live events.
AWS Elemental, AWS Cloud infrastructure, render farm architecture, NAS buildout, and nightly backup systems. Bridging on-prem production with cloud scalability.
Training 100+ engineers, building SOPs for emerging technologies, consulting on VR capture best practices, and bridging the gap between creative teams and technical infrastructure.
From the International Space Station to Meta's product launches -- a career at the edge of live technology.
Architected render farms, NAS infrastructure, and AWS backup systems. Engineered token-gated live shows and AEG music festival builds with satellite redundancies. Upgraded L2 networking for production infrastructure.
Lead implementation engineer for consumer-facing product launches. Trained media partners on VR/AR tools. Authored SOPs for Horizon Worlds VR production. Produced over 1 billion aggregate views. Led camera control for Oculus Connect with John Carmack.
Produced world-first live streams from the ISS. Delivered VR capture for the RNC and DNC. Consulted on UFC 205 VR practices. Produced Nokia's world-first 4K 3D VR live stream. Led Paris COP21 World Climate Summit engineering. Built PC systems for Oculus E3 demo.
Thought leadership on the future of broadcast engineering, streaming infrastructure, and the technology reshaping live media.
After building failover systems for Meta, Autograph, and global live events -- here's what every broadcast engineer needs to know about designing for failure.
What it took to capture history in 360° -- the technical challenges, the failures, and the breakthroughs of live VR at political scale.
After 14 years in the trenches, here's how I'm positioning my expertise for the next chapter -- and what I wish I'd known earlier.
Whether you're looking for consulting, speaking engagements, or just want to talk broadcast engineering -- I'm always open to a conversation.