A digital media and production company based at MediaCity in Salford, UK, has been using multiple Haivision mobile video transmitter and receiver solutions to enable live broadcast coverage of high-profile events, including a recent international tour by Lancashire Cricket Club.
Having begun life as a project for media production students to obtain industry experience, Badger & Combes transformed into a mature production company in 2020. The team had already conducted extensive work on behalf of Lancashire Cricket Club when it was invited to undertake an IP-based remote production of a pre-season tour that touched down in Dubai and Bengaluru, India.
An examination of the workflow options for the tour swiftly resulted in the realisation that Haivision video contribution solutions – including Haivision Air and Pro mobile video transmitters, and a Haivision StreamHub receiver – could be used to deliver the production with the necessary robustness, flexibility and cost-efficiency.
Colin McKevitt, managing director of Badger & Combes, recalls: “We had challenges with the logistics of what we needed to bring to India and what the costs would be. After working out how many people it would take, and how much it would cost to ship out the entire solution in a flight case, we decided that we only needed to take Haivision mobile video transmitters with us and send signals back to a Haivision StreamHub receiver located in England for the whole production.”
Fulfilling the premise of remote production – which entails a small team being sent out to the actual event location – the bulk of the production team remained at the Lancashire Cricket home venue, Emirates Old Trafford with commentators, analysts, a director, replay team, and post-production staff. In India, a remote team of just two people was located on-site and sent high-quality feeds back to the UK for broadcast on the LancsTV streaming channel, as well as via the popular JioTV app in India.
Production confidence
The Haivision solutions provided Badger & Combes with significant technical reassurance thanks to capabilities such as the hitless failover feature, which allowed the transmitters to move from a wired IP connection to a cellular network in case of potential failure. At the cricket field in India, the Haivision Air transmitters were dedicated to transmitting the clean programme feed, whilst one of the Pro transmitters conveyed a multi-camera view containing different angles of the game. One camera outfitted with a Pro transmitter was used as a dedicated ball-tracker feed.
Return feeds were sent by the Haivision Air Units to a StreamHub receiver, enabling the production and on-air crew in the UK to view everything simultaneously. “The commentary team back at the Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground could see all the action and comment in real-time,” reveals McKevitt. “In addition, the production team was able to manage the post-production, including the addition of graphics and teeing up replays for the commentators to discuss on-air. The return path of these produced streams was sent back to the JioTV app using the Haivision Pro.”
It’s vital to be prepared for all eventualities when it comes to live broadcast, and the Haivision equipment ensured that there were no problems that could not be resolved. “Being out in a rural area of Bangalore, there were some issues that we couldn’t prepare for, especially when it came to network connectivity. We lost connection with the internet at times, but because of the hitless failover feature of the Haivision mobile transmitters and SIM cards, viewers at home did not even notice when the signal dropped.”
Noting that the company continues to rely on Haivision solutions for a wide range of live event commitments, McKevitt offers a final observation about the recent Lancashire Cricket tour: “Without the Haivision kit, this production would have been too expensive, and time- and resource-prohibitive. We have all this talent at Badger & Combes with a digitally creative mindset and Haivision technology allows us to explore that creativity, and push the boundaries of what can be done in broadcast.”
For more information on the Haivision Pro range, please visit
https://www3.haivision.com/tvb-europe-pro-transmitters.
