Much of the debate over the journey towards IP and software first infrastructure and the arrival of remote production models, has understandably focused on production studios and delivery systems. We thought it might be interesting to discuss what effect the transition has had or is having on the connectivity at the venue between capture devices (mostly cameras) and the encoders that deliver the signals to production.

Camera Connectivity

The Broadcast Bridge: How is connectivity between camera and either truck or backhaul mostly being done? Are there any major differences between remote and full OB models?

Dafydd Rees. NEP UK: “There aren’t many differences in the way we acquire those signals onsite for the different approaches. There’s the field acquisition piece, the connectivity into the OB, and the front end engineering element. That front end hands over to production for them to do whatever they need to with the signals. To me it doesn’t make much difference whether that bit of the puzzle is in the other half of the lorry, or whether that bit of the puzzle is 100 miles away.”

“Generally speaking, with the way we do things, that field acquisition piece is broadly the same. For the system cameras that we use, the transmission is IP down fiber from the camera to the OB. There are some cameras where we use SDI just because it’s still a perfectly serviceable way of doing things. Clearly there are cameras where you take IP directly out of the camera heads and send those directly to the remote production sites, almost bypassing the OB infrastructure.  There are advantages to that, but also some challenges as well.  Not least of which is having somebody onsite that can monitor and troubleshoot and run over to the field if there’s a challenge.”

“There is one slight change--but it doesn’t necessarily have to do with whether it’s a remote production or not--is that typically for the commentator’s monitors or studio monitors, typically it would have been SDI from the OB to those monitors. But now we’re increasingly using different IP protocols to achieve that because it cuts down on the infrastructure that is needed. If you can run a network switch at the studio, between the studio network switch and the OB, then you’re passing a bunch of video feeds, a bunch of audio feeds, control, lighting data, and other control feeds as well, all over a pair of fibers. Then actually, that does start to make a lot of sense, rather than using SDI. You could think of using NDI, for example, for some of those monitoring feeds. It’s not 2110, it’s a simpler environment to work with, and it proves itself useful as a monitoring IP device. It’s not a right or wrong answer because it is still a bit of both depending on where you are and what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “It’s still a standard model but it depends on the facility. Our preferred solution is a CCU with SMPTE 2110 out to the camera, but we can be at a venue that still has triax, or we’re running fiber to those boxes. It all depends on what the venue offers. The bigger stadiums are usually wired for SMPTE 2110. The mobile unit pulls in, you connect cables and you put the cameras out where they need to go. With other sites, we are running the fiber or the triax. With a golf course, you’re running miles of fiber to connect everything . So it varies by sport and venue”

Roaming Cameras

The Broadcast Bridge: How are you doing roaming cameras and are you looking at private 5G?

Dafydd Rees. NEP UK: “For the most part the roaming cameras that we use are on dedicated licensable frequencies, and that works well for us because there’s no contention for the bandwidth. It’s all regulated and we can be fairly confident that when we switch a camera on, on that particular frequency, there’s not going to be anybody else trying to use it as well. The challenge with bonded cellular is in a stadium with 60,000 people, it becomes saturated quickly. Typically we might use that for some disaster recovery contribution, but we wouldn’t typically use that for the sideline cameras or the steady cams or whatever we’re using on a sports event.”

“We have run a number of proof of concepts with private 5G providers and it’s been really interesting and it’s something to watch because it could provide some really interesting alternative angles, especially when you’re beyond the reach of your OB installed receivers. The example often is, if you want to follow the team bus from Wales to Wembley, then 5G might be a great way of doing that. So again, it’s choosing the right application for the customer’s needs.”

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “On the shows where we have remote cameras, our specialty capture teams have gear onsite. For the bigger shows they actually have a dedicated RF mobile unit with antennas, and they feed signals back into the mobile unit. On other mid-sized shows you might send out a specialized kit to provide wireless connectivity to the mobile unit.”

Backhaul Encoding

The Broadcast Bridge: With a full remote model are you putting a lot more encoding in on site, versus a truck where you’re bringing somewhat less feeds back?

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “For a full remote, yes. A lot of this is handled by the client, for instance they may have their own flight rack kit that goes out to site that we integrate into the mobile unit. We give them all the feeds they need, and they’re using hardware encoders and their own backup solutions and they send it off to their site. And then on other shows, we provide it for them. For example there’s a hardware encoder frame and depending on the mobile unit, we’ll do either SDI into the encoders or 2110. Again, it all depends on the customer’s needs.”

The Broadcast Bridge: The subject of backhaul encoding is covered at length elsewhere within the Live Sports Production series. It has its own article Backhaul In Live Sports Production in Part 2 (which also discusses network infrastructure and broadcast controllers) and is the subject of conversation with David Walker at Appear in the next article.

Machine Data

The Broadcast Bridge: Whilst we are discussing signal acquisition it seems fitting to look at machine data. With the rise of data driven graphics visualizations there is a need for reliable capture of data feeds from venue systems for sports like motor racing, and a need for reliable acquisition from cloud-based data feeds for statistics for quite a range of sports. Is this something that you get involved in from an on-site engineering perspective?

Damien Hesse. NEP Americas: “Yes we do. We will make sure that everything is in place--whether it’s the network feed or scoreboard data that’s coming down as 422--we make sure it gets from point A to point B. Whether that’s a graphics machine or a camera tracking system, we get it to where it needs to go and support that flow. For streaming data we get it from the cloud, and make sure it’s secure transiting the network and the systems. Our specialty capture team provides a lot of in-car cameras solutions, so they also have tracking GPS data where they feed into the mobile unit, and that is then aggregated and pulled out and sent on to the graphics systems. These examples are all part of what we do in providing end-to-end solutions.”

Later in the series we dig in to the pivotal topic of latency and how it affects control and monitoring in the different production models.