About
A small Cambridge consultancy giving practical advice on broadcast technology and studio production.
How a studio engineer started a consultancy
dailyray began in 2014 when Helen Marsh left television studio engineering to advise other teams. She had seen how often good crews lost time to unclear procedures and mismatched kit. The company is based at Mill Road Yard in Cambridge.
Helen spent her earlier career inside television studios, working on the technical side of live and recorded programmes. That gave her a close view of what actually goes wrong on a studio day, and it is rarely a single dramatic failure. More often it is a small habit nobody wrote down.
When she founded dailyray in 2014, the idea was simple: offer the kind of advice she would have wanted as an engineer. It had to be specific, honest about cost, and written so that a whole crew could use it, not only the person who had read the manual.
The company has grown slowly into a team of four. Callum Reid advises on lighting and cameras, Priya Nair on audio routing and synchronisation, and Tom Ashworth turns procedures into checklists and training material. Helen leads the workflow reviews and writes most of the guides.
Our clients are studio engineers, producers and small media teams working in television and live production. Some have a fixed studio, others build a set for each event. Both need the same thing: a clear picture of how their system works.
We keep the work modest in scope on purpose. We would rather do one review well than promise a full rebuild. Our reports say what we saw, what we suggest and what could wait, so you can decide in your own time.
What guides the way we work with crews
Studio teams work under time pressure, and advice that adds confusion is worse than none. Our principles come from watching how real productions run. They shape how we speak, what we measure and how we write things down, so that the result is useful the day after we leave.
Clarity
Clarity means we avoid jargon where a plain word will do. Reports are organised by what to do first, and each recommendation gives its reason. Tom reads every guide as a newcomer would, and anything that needs a second reading is rewritten before it reaches you.
Accuracy
Accuracy means we check before we write. Signal paths are traced, lighting levels are measured and settings are recorded, not assumed. When we cannot confirm something on the day, the report says so and suggests how your team can test it.
Practicality
Practicality means advice that fits a real budget, a real room and a real crew. We prefer changes that can be made between productions and repeated by someone else. If a cheaper option does the job, we say so, even when it means a smaller piece of work.
How our approach took shape
dailyray
- Founded
- 2014
- Today
- 2026
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Starting from the floor
Our method began with Helen's years in studio engineering: begin by watching how the crew actually works, not how the diagram says it should.
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Writing things down
Early clients asked for something they could keep, so every visit now ends with a written report, checklist or guide rather than a verbal summary.
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Adding lighting and cameras
Callum joined to cover stage lighting and camera configuration, so one visit could address how a set looks as well as how it runs.
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Bringing in audio
Priya's focus on routing, sync and mixing meant timing problems could be traced from microphone to output within the same review.
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Training material
Tom's technical writing turned findings into crew checklists and training notes, so improvements outlast the consultant's visit.
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Keeping the scope honest
We still take on work in proportion to what we can do well, and we tell clients plainly when something is outside our remit.
dailyray
The size and shape of the practice
dailyray is a small company, and we would rather describe it plainly than inflate it. We were founded in 2014 and have worked from Cambridge since. A team of four covers five services, from workflow reviews to technical writing, and every piece of work is led by someone who does it daily.
- Service areas
- 5
- Team profiles
- 4
- Based in
- Cambridge