Riot Games’ remote broadcast centre in Dublin is utilising Appear’s X Platform to support the production, broadcast, and translation of both its League of Legends esports and Valorant Champions Tour broadcasts at a global and regional scale.
Appear’s X Platform is a key component to live AVC/HEVC feed contribution and delivery to-and-from Riot’s remote broadcast centre due to its high-quality, low-latency capabilities, said the company.
Appear’s SMPTE 2110 native connectivity for AVC/HEVC encoders and decoders, with SMPTE 2022-7 and NMOS support, enabled Riot to migrate from its previous SDI-only solution, bringing greater density, lower power consumption, and simplified management.
The first Appear platforms were configured to perform high-density HEVC encoding and decoding, resulting in robust and secure high-quality video streaming with reduced latency, providing more stable video streaming at scale, added Appear.
Riot Games will continue its global deployment of Appear’s X Platform to support high-capacity remote productions utilising Transport Stream over IP with FEC (TSoIP), and SRT gateways where needed to support different network types.
“Appear was the ideal solution on the market that met our demanding requirements for high density encode and delivery of AVC/HEVC signals to and from our new, cutting edge broadcast facilities” said James Wyld, principal infrastructure engineer at Riot Games. “More specifically, the native ability to exchange these feeds directly with our 2110 IP networks has allowed us to greatly simplify a workflow that previously required an additional layer of IP gateway devices.”
“In addition to this, being able to encode, package, and deliver over multiple network paths simultaneously adds a layer of resilience that our broadcasts require. We run a mix of different delivery strategies to support our productions across the globe, and having a flexible platform allows us to support multiple scenarios in the field. While our facilities are entirely IP based, we need to support a mix of technologies for acquisition of our feeds in-venue, so relying on the same tools for both SDI and IP workflows makes our complex workflows easier to manage for our operators.”
