As part of its coverage of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, Eurovision Sport employed solutions from across the LiveU EcoSystem to bring signals back from various venues.
The championships took place in Scotland, with Eurovision Sport basing its remote Broadcast Operation Centre (BOC) at BBC Scotland in Glasgow.
“This event was a huge project,” explained Franck Choquard, head of content and platforms, Eurovision Sport. “What we were looking at was how we could use innovative technologies to be more cost-effective alongside the guarantee of resiliency in the field.”
Eurovision Sport wanted to employ LiveU’s technology for two main use cases. The first was the need to bring signals back from various sites, including motorbikes, helicopters and other moving vehicles alongside ENG teams, to the BOC, which was operated by Eurovision Sport’s regular production partner Actua Films.
“This was undoubtedly more cost-effective than using RF and gave us the flexibility we needed,” said Choquard. “The second was to secure the contribution network with ten venues being used around Scotland with an ‘ultimate backup solution’. We required a resilient, IP-based solution with bonding for these, so we used LiveU, bringing back a pair of feeds from each relevant site.”
Eurovision Sport deployed 12 multi-camera LU800s, operated by Actua Films, which were used in multi-camera mode, both for content acquisition and for securing signals.
In addition to contribution, Eurovision Sport developed a hybrid model that combines SDI baked up by LiveU cloud services. “We used both LiveU Matrix and Cloud Connect to contribute the production feeds in LRT or SRT to some of the takers,” explained Choquard. “We have our Digital Content Hub, and we used this in combination with the LiveU EcoSystem. We had takers who wanted a lot of material for their digital platforms but didn’t want to spend to access satellite feeds. Our LiveU workflow was perfect for this. For several events, some takers then created their own remote productions.”
Choquard concluded, “LiveU really delivers when it comes to the quality of service. It can provide a complete service easily across the video production chain. There’s also its reach across our member broadcasters in terms of on-premise reception technology. We are constantly looking at ways to innovate with our partner LiveU.”
