Last weekend saw Manchester-based TV facility dock10 play host to multiple rounds of EA Sports’ eChampions League (eCL).
The event was hosted across dock10’s studios—HQ1, HQ2, HQ8, and HQ10—utilising over 30,000 square feet of production space, with all of the studios fully interconnected through a robust, high-capacity network infrastructure.
As well as utilising dock10’s studios and technology, production company Whisper also made use of the facility’s in-house technology team.
“The great thing about having the eCL in is they use lots of space, and they really make the most of all that space being in the heart of the campus and all the surrounding facilities,” dock10’s head of studios Andy Waters tells TVBEurope.
“Of course we have the technology, you’d expect that, but what we also have is a permanent in-house team who really know how to drive that technology. It’s OK having all the infrastructure, but you need the people to be able to configure it. Having that large team, not just technology staff and studios, but technology staff in post, meant that we could come up with some great workflows connecting all those spaces together.”
That meant the event was able to use a combination of HQ1, HQ2 and HQ10 for the live tournament, HQ1’s gallery for the main show, and HQ8’s gallery for EVS coordination. “That’s a great thing about having the space and resources we’ve got, it allows us to spread out, and a bit more comfort is gained because of that,” says Waters.
One of the project’s biggest challenges is that esports is traditionally broadcast or streamed in the American standard of 59.94 field rate, with 1080p resolution. But, dock10 wasn’t only hosting the eCL last weekend, it also had the BBC’s Match of the Day regular broadcast on Sunday night.
“The building usually hums along at 50 field rate and 1080i,” explains Waters. “So, you end up with, shall we say, quite a lot of knitting, and one set of knitting is operating at one standard and one frequency, and then the other set of knitting is a different standard. So it’s a challenge, but we’ve been built to be able to do that sort of scenario.
“We have a centralised Control Technology Area but with discrete bays for each studio, which allows us to create different technology standard islands within the dock10 studio complex,” he continues. “Parts of the infrastructure are driven by one sync pulse generator (SPG) and standard and other areas will be driven by a separate broadcast chain.”
Waters is keen to praise everyone at dock10 for all their hard work in ensuring they could deliver both productions, including lead studio manager, Adam Broadhurst. “The dock10 team would also like to thank Nathan Sweeney, one of the lead studio engineers in the technology team, who sadly passed away recently. He was a big part of the project,”
Working with Whisper on the project was a pleasure, says Waters. “They realised it was a big ask, and they were always really respectful, understood what we were good at and worked with us. That makes such a big difference when you’ve got a client which operates in that way.
“Plus, EA Sports loved the MediaCity campus. They weren’t stuck in a warehouse in the back of beyond, they were in the centre of a city which comes with restaurants, bars and hotels, which are all connected into our studio complex with its integrated post services. So having that all wrapped up within the confines of MediaCity, I know that’s something they really enjoyed.”
