French national public broadcaster France Télévisions is working with TVU Networks to transition its content production workflow from story capture to production to distribution to the cloud ahead of next summer’s Olympic Games.
The new workflow utilises TVU’s cloud solutions for production, remote collaboration, and IFB, intercom and mix-minus management, employing the TVU RPS One for synchronised multi-camera live content capture, and 5G networks plus two Starlink Maritime units for transmission and data aggregation.
“We were searching for a more flexible approach to live story coverage which would allow us to rapidly overcome accessibility challenges often encountered by our field crews. At the same time, we wanted a solution that also helped us meet a very important objective of reducing our carbon footprint,” explained Skander Ben Attia, engineering director at France Televisions.
“TVU provided us with a smaller, less hardware reliant, and more versatile technology solution that created the foundation for hyper-mobile broadcasting. We no longer need to rely heavily on traditional extensive and complex infrastructure for news capture while also becoming much faster to go live and more carbon friendly.”
Last month France Televisions utilised the hyper-mobile broadcasting on special programming marking one year until the opening of Paris 2024. In total, they produced nearly four hours of live content – three hours continuously on the franceinfo news channel and a half hour on the Paris Idf regional news show, and also streamed live on Twitch.
The multi-location and multi-camera event took place in Paris aboard a moving boat with limited space. A five-camera setup involved four cameras positioned on the boats and one camera mounted on a motorcycle following the action along the Seine River. In addition, two more live broadcasts were taking place in separate locations in Paris and Ukraine. All were done using the TVU RPS One and TVU One transmitters. The seven live feeds were synchronised in TVU Producer’s cloud production platform, with zero execution delay.
The broadcaster used two Starlink Maritime systems and the 5G network to help deal with the challenges of cellular bandwidth on the moving boats. The TVU RPS One backpack transmitter with 5G modems was used to transmit synchronised signals from multiple cameras to the TVU remote cloud production platform, aggregating 5G and Starlink connectivity. A motorcycle on land was also equipped with a TVU One 5G transmitter for capturing additional footage.
“We are very excited about the results we are seeing from our hyper-mobile initiative with TVU. We have been able to produce high quality multi-camera live events or breaking news from any location despite challenging circumstances – hardware failures, an entire system down, war zones or deserted areas,” said Romuald Rat, TechLab director at France Télévisions. “With only batteries and cameras in hand and powered by the latest generation of 5G with Starlink and TVU bonded cellular transmission equipment, the reporting team has the tools it needs to rapidly conduct a live newscast anywhere in the world and cover stories from any angle – traditional and new.”
