It is tempting to think that one can define the different approaches to live sports production according to the technology stack, and where & how it is deployed.

Conceptually there is a set of building blocks; capture devices, connectivity between capture and encode, camera control flows, encoders, production control interfaces, production processing resource, backhaul encoding & decoding, venue to production center connectivity, monitoring paths for video & audio, graphics data flows, comms… etc etc.

The combination of and size of the blocks varies by production requirements. Where those blocks are located varies by approach… Full OB, Full Remote, REMCO or Hybrid. The trouble with trying to define things is that there is often no ubiquitous way of doing things. In these articles we enjoyed discussing the many and various ways things are actually done with the people responsible for getting things done day-to-day. We hope it shares some insight and makes for an enjoyable read.

We begin with a bit of a chat about the biggest challenges of the last few years and the changes in live sports production models since the pandemic from an engineering perspective.

Dafydd Rees. NEP UK: “The biggest change is that the shift to IP has continued. I’ve been at NEP for three years, but I was first involved with an IP OB system back in 2015. We’re ten years into this IP world and there’s been a growing pace of evolution over the last five years. Having arrived at NEP and seeing the fantastic work that’s been done with TFC, our broadcast orchestration platform, it’s really solved a lot of the IP roadblocks, and solved the difficulties people were having in trying to implement IP systems around legacy control systems. Certainly within my world here, the big change has been that IP has become business as usual. It’s an exciting thing because it opens up so many possibilities around the way that we build and manage OBs, the way we innovate remote OBs and the way we put systems together to make them scalable and efficient.”

“Alongside the technological change of IP over the last five years, is the shift to and the acceptance of more remote solutions. Especially during the pandemic there was a movement towards doing everything remotely, because it’s brilliant and we can do it now. It’s bolstered the idea it can offer benefits, and it can offer efficiencies and people have embraced it.”

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “One of the biggest changes was our migration to 2110 and everything it has unlocked. Everyone implements standards in their own way, but a lot of challenges with 2110 have been solved with TFC, our broadcast orchestration platform which has simplified how we manage IP in a broadcast environment.”

“There have also been changes to approach. Content producers and producers of live sports and entertainment need to have the very best technologies and solutions, and they need them to be reliable, efficient and cost-effective. Some clients prefer a REMI workflow, some prefer a full onsite workflow, and some prefer a hybrid solution.”

“Each client has different needs based on the needs of their production. For some shows everything may be onsite, and for others only the production elements are onsite. For example, a director and a producer are onsite, while the rest of the crew is remote, with the exception of camera operators and audio monitoring. While others may prefer a full REMI production, with only a mobile unit onsite for acquisition. It’s all about balancing the solutions for each individual show, and building an ecosystem that is adaptable to the needs of the customer and their goals to be successful.”

What’s In A Specialist REMI Truck?

The Broadcast Bridge: You have some relatively new specialist REMI trucks in your fleet. What is the difference between what’s in those compared to a traditional truck?

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “We have NEP Supershooter 61, 62, 63 & 64 mobile units. Those are our dedicated REMI units. If you look at the layout of Supershooter 64, it looks very much like a traditional NEP production facility, but you don’t have the switcher surface on the right-hand side where the TD would sit. There are bigger monitors that are more multi-use to make the space more versatile, but it doesn’t have the dedicated 32-inch monitors we have in a full production unit. Supershooter 63 and 64 are wired for two replay systems where a full unit might have eight or ten. These mobile units are still well-equipped, but designed to be very versatile.” 

“Also, when we built Supershooter 63 & 64, keeping the production space similar to a traditional NEP mobile unit makes it multi-purpose for us. For example, if we have a bigger unit like ND2 that’s doing a major production and they need another production area, we can pull Supershooter 64 right next to ND2, plug in signals, put a switcher in there and have another production going on. When we build these units they are not just specialized for one unique function, they are extremely versatile.”

Dafydd Rees. NEP UK: “In the UK we have three styles of remote OBs. One example we built last year is our Neo unit. The challenge the customer put to us was they wanted a reduction in power draw, a reduction in the number of vehicles on the road and a reduction in the number of people traveling to site. These needs are all part of our collective sustainability push. The concept with Neo, for example, was that where we would normally drive a production unit and a tender vehicle to site, we asked ourselves, ‘could we combine everything into one unit’? What we created was a remote contribution technical trailer, but with space at the back for all of the equipment – effectively combining the tender and technical units. Additionally, because now we’re taking much less equipment to site, it allows us to run the OB entirely from a battery source. The trailer has its own 150 kilowatt hours of battery capacity, which will run the whole OB unit for a substantial time period, and it also has solar panels on the roof so it is also harvesting energy from the sun.”

“That almost becomes a completely self-sufficient unit in itself. It has all the kit that it needs. It has the technical kit to do the acquisition, and to do the camera to contribution conversion. It has some shading positions and it has a small sound area as well. So if you need to do an audio mix onsite, you can do that and control the comms. Neo is an incredible innovation now supporting customers in the UK.”

“We also have a concept where all of the technical equipment is built into the front of a traditional tender unit. This works better for larger shows because in partnership with that is a separate vehicle where you can set some of the racking positions, the supervisor position and the space for the unit manager. We have a lot of tools in the toolbox depending on the size of the remote production the customer needs.”

Public Cloud Infrastructure

The Broadcast Bridge: Is there any public cloud-based processing used in your trucks? I know you have your own off-site data centers and that can be part of your model, so the connectivity is in place, but I am keen to understand if actual SAS model public cloud infrastructure is part of your systems?

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “We do use one of the leading vendor public cloud-native production systems. We operate our own NEP DataCenter in Dallas, which is part of NEP’s connected solutions ecosystem. As part of full remote systems feeds will go back into our datacenter and they’ll take it from there. From the mobile unit end we don’t see it, because the team in Dallas handles all of the ingesting and putting feeds through the system. Once at the NEP Datacenter, they go out for distribution elsewhere.  We are part of the workflow, but we’re at the beginning of it.”

Planning & Prep

The Broadcast Bridge: Does planning a remote production take any longer.  Is it more involved? Does it make any difference.

Dafydd Rees. NEP UK: “With a traditional OB model you drive to site and it doesn’t matter whether there’s connectivity there, you can drive a satellite uplink with you if you need to. It’s all self-contained. There’s not a lot of considerations beyond that. If you have power, you’re away.”

“With remote production, there’s the connectivity element to consider. Is the site appropriately connected? Is there enough bandwidth there and is it available? Where is the connectivity onsite? Can we get it to the production hub? You also have the challenge that you’re trying to roster facilities in two separate places, not just one. None of this is beyond reach, but there are more elements to planning a remote production.”

Some Broadcast Bridge Wider Perspective

Both of the people interviewed here have specific responsibilities within the context of the type of production undertaken by their individual territories within NEP. Drawing in some wider context, there is a very wide range of types of production, and technical approaches to production being undertaken across the world – where the answers to some of these questions would be quite different.

There is for example, at least one European broadcaster who has permanently installed the acquisition element within stadiums. With this example pitch side cabinets are fitted with network connectivity & backhaul encoders and all feeds are streamed directly back to a remote production facility. The connectivity from cabinet to camera position is a permanent fixture – the venue crew deploys and operates cameras and everything else is remote. For them it makes sense because there is significant repetition to weekly soccer – it is always the same cameras in the same positions every week, and the connectivity is good enough for full remote operation.

We have seen many other examples where a similarly stripped-down skeleton kit is built into flight cases and shipped to wherever they are needed. The exact composition of what is in the kits varies according to need, as does the size and make up of the human crew that flies out to meet the kit.

The point is that the model of having a set of building blocks that can be adapted and deployed according to requirement has become a working reality – and one that is delivering significant flexibility to production systems of all shapes and sizes. As a strong side benefit it is becoming increasingly possible to achieve live production for a growing array of sports and lower leagues that may well never have the budget for full scale production.

Later in this series our discussion moves on to digging a little deeper in to the on-site infrastructure associated with different production models.