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LiveU: Changing the live broadcast game

Consumer expectations when it comes to the coverage of large live events such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup have never been higher. They now demand a much more immersive, multi-dimensional viewing experience. Broadcasters have to deliver and this is where LiveU’s cellular uplinking expertise comes in.

The recent World Cup was a real game-changer for LiveU technology deployment as the numbers reveal. During the course of the tournament, over 200 broadcasters used our solutions, which handled over 2,650 hours of transmission and a staggering 40TB of data – what’s more, around 98% of the broadcasts were live!

Our global customers were able to benefit from unprecedented mobility and flexibility during their coverage, delivering the type of 360-degree content that has been hinted at previously. Juan Pablo Marino, director of Transmission, Caracol TV Colombia, said, “We used several solutions from LiveU for the World Cup. The mobility we had with the units and Xtender gave us the ability to go live from five different locations at the same time following the Colombian team and its fans; a true game-changer for us in the creation of content for global events.”

Our solutions strategy has really made the difference. The recently-launched LU500, our small and powerful, next-generation product that delivers greater outright performance in the field, is a prime example. It’s powered by LiveU’s new multi-processor video encoding engine and fourth-generation patented bonding algorithms, providing previously unseen levels of signal robustness in an easy-to-carry unit.

The LU500 can be used in conjunction with the new Xtender external antenna – as it was at the 2014 FIFA World Cup – which provides extra resiliency in challenging conditions, and can even be connected to satellite equipment to create a hybrid cellular/satellite solution for guaranteed bandwidth in remote areas. This means our customers can go live from anywhere, anytime.

Having even more flexibility and capability in the field is important to broadcasters and this is something that we’ve addressed with LiveU Central. This is our browser-based management system, which enables easy control and geo-tracking of all LiveU systems, feeds, and apps from any location. LiveU Central provides a live preview of all incoming feeds that can be dragged and dropped to any physical server output anywhere around the world or encoded for web streaming.

Looking ahead, there’s little doubt that the cloud has a major role to play in the future of the broadcast industry. IP technology is the future of television with the evolution of cloud-based services the next logical step, allowing broadcasters to benefit from even greater capability, scalability and flexibility.

We’re using IBC to demonstrate the evolution of our existing offering, bringing the power of the cloud to bear as we develop new ways to meet our customers’ needs – both now and in the future – allowing them to increase functionality as and when needed. LiveU is uniquely positioned to respond to broadcasters’ needs and requirements with a comprehensive set of modular, tiered services tailored to fit their specific workflows.