Riot Games is building a global production system to produce live events anywhere, anytime, from centralized production data centres. Its new remote broadcast and content production centre (RBC) in Dublin, Ireland, is the first of several to be built and interconnected to provide a global follow-the-sun production model, with each able to produce several events simultaneously according to time zone requirements. Nevion is providing the system to orchestrate media flows between the remote venues and the RBC, across Riot’s wide area network (WAN), Riot Direct.

The system will be built around Nevion’s software-defined media node, Virtuoso, and its orchestration and SDN control software, VideoIPath. The Virtuosos will be deployed in the SMPTE ST 2110 enabled data centres, and in mobile “contribution kits” to be taken to event locations as needed. The media nodes will provide several media functions to transport flows across the network, including SDI/SMPTE ST 2110 adaption, JPEG XS low latency video compression, MADI processing and transport, IPME (IP media edge) functionality for LAN to WAN hand-off, multicast to unicast conversion, and flow protection.

Riot first deployed Nevion Virtuoso with JPEG XS in remote production of League of Legends World Championship Final in 2019, following in 2022 with integration of MADI over IP/SMPTE ST ST2110 between Los Angeles and Reykjavík during the League of Legends World Championship in Iceland. VideoIPath will function as a single orchestration layer for the WAN media connectivity, enabling Riot to connect contribution kits with centralized production infrastructure in the data centres as quickly as possible. To achieve this, VideoIPath will provide dynamic connection and orchestrate all media flows, managing and optimizing use of bandwidth.

“We are embarking on an ambitious plan to develop new production and operations workflows that will support our growth from a single-game esports company to a multigame future,” said Scott Adametz, Senior Manager of Infrastructure Engineering at Riot Games. “Having worked with Nevion for a couple of years already, we knew that Nevion’s products, expertise and experience would enable us to build an IP solution that would allow for more global efficiency for our esports productions.”