Video: Real-Time Remote Production For The FIFA Women’s World Cup

We hear about so many new and improved cloud products and solutions to improve production that, once in a while, you really just need to step back and hear how people have put them together. This session is just that, a look at the whole post production workflow for FOX Sports’ production of the Women’s World Cup.

This panel from the Live Streaming Summit at Streaming Media West is led by FOX Sports’ Director of Post Production, Brandon Potter as he talks through the event with three of his key vendors, IBM Aspera, Telestream and Levels Beyond.

Brandon starts by explaining that this production stood on the back of the work they did with the Men’s World Cup in Russia, both having SDI delivery of media in PAL at the IBC. For this event, all the edit crew was in LA which created problems with some fixed frame-rate products still in use in the US facility.

Data transfer, naturally is the underpinning of any event like this with a total of a petabyte of data being created. Network connectivity for international events is always tricky. With so many miles of cable whether on land or under the sea, there is a very high chance of the fibre being cut. At the very least, the data can be switched to take a different path an in that moment, there will be data loss. All of this means that you can’t assume the type of data loss, it could be seconds, minutes or hours. On top of creating, and affording, redundant data circuits, the time needed for transfer of all the data needs to be considered and managed.

Ensuring complete transfer of files in a timely fashion drove the production to auto archive of all content in real time into Amazon S3 in order to avoid long post-match ingest times of multiple hours, “every bit of high-res content was uploaded.” stated Michael Flathers, CTO of IBM Aspera.

Dave Norman, from Telestream explains how the live workflows stayed on-prem with the high-performance media and encoders and then, “as the match ended, we would then transition…into AWS”. In the cloud, the HLS proxies would then being rendered into a single mp4 proxy editing files.

David Gonzales explains the benefits of the full API integrations they chose to build their multi-vendor solution around, rather than simple watch-folders. For all platforms to know where the errors were was very valuable and was particularly useful for the remote users to know in detail where their files were. This reduces the number of times they would need to ask someone for help and meant that when they did need to ask, they had a good amount of detail to specify what the problem was.

The talk comes to a close with a broad analysis of the different ways that files were moved and cached in order to optimise the workflow. There were a mix of TCP-style workflows and Aspera’s UDP-based transfer technology. Worth noting, also, that HLS manifests needed to be carefully created to only reference chunks that had been transferred, rather than simply any that had been created. Use of live creation of clips from growing files was also an important tool, the in- and out-points being created by viewing a low-latency proxy stream then the final file being clipped from the growing file in France and delivered within minutes to LA.

Overall, this case study gives a good feel for the problems and good practices which go hand in hand with multi-day events with international connectivity and shows that large-scale productions can successfully, and quickly, provide full access to all media to their production teams to maximise the material available for creative uses.

Watch now!
Speakers

Mike Flathers Mike Flathers
CTO,
IBM Aspera
Brandon Potter Brandon Potter
Director of Post Production,
FOX Sports
Dave Norman Dave Norman
Principal Sales Engineer,
Telestream
Daniel Gonzales Daniel Gonzales
Senior Solutions Architect,
Levels Beyond

Video: All IP Success Stories Real World Deployments

When SDI came in to replace analogue video, there were difficulties and setbacks yet now it’s very well trusted and ubiquitous. Similarly, life is not simple moving from SDI into IP, either 2022-6 or 2110, let alone PTP which replaces black nad burst.

In this talk we hear from people who have made that change and are working with IP. We find out what went well, whether things are up and running yet and also what the challenges and lessons learnt are.

Speakers

Mike Wilken Mike Wilken
SVP of Systems and Technology,
FOX Sports
Francois Legrand Francois Legrand
Senior Project Mangaer,
CBC/Radio Canada
Daniel Murphy Daniel Murphy
NEP

Video: FOX Sports Revolutionises Delivery of the 2018 FIFA World Cup


At IBC 2018, FOX Sports, Telestream and Aspera explained how they dealt with the masses of content generated at the FIFA World Cup 2018.

Find out how FOX Sports built their workflow to produce the games with teams in both LA and Sochi.

  • Reed Kaufman explains which teams remained in the US and who was at the onsite IBC (International Broadcast Centre) in Russia and the benefits of keeping some work in the US.
  • Auto-Generation of 29,000 video clips by Watson/Thuuz AI engine
  • International Connectivity Concerns
  • Ken Haren discusses how Telestream created an AVC-I workflow which functioned both on-premise and in the cloud recording 3000 live streams and managing 22,600 clips in Reach Engine.
  • And Mike Flathers details how Aspera linked the two countries with FASP Stream integrated directly into the Telestream infrastructure.

Watch Now!

Speakers

Reed Kaufman,
Executive Director, Post Production at Fox Sports

Ken Haren,
Marketing Director,
Telestream

Mike Flathers,
CTO
Aspera, an IBM Company

 

Webinar: How FOX Sports Revolutionised Sports Content Delivery at the World Cup with IBM Aspera & Telestream


Date: Tuesday 7th August 2018.
In this webinar, learn how FOX Sports teams up with IBM Aspera and Telestream to make remote live sports production of all edited content possible. In order to deliver 320 hours of original content and 1,100 hours of captured video from over 6,000 miles away, FOX Sports is using IBM Aspera FASPStream technology, integrated into Telestream’s Lightspeed Live and Vantage products.

Join the webinar to hear how this solution enhances tournament coverage while avoiding reliance on expensive, dedicated fiber or satellite connections.

Presenters:
Mike Flathers, Chief Technology Officer, IBM Aspera
Ken Haren, Marketing Director, Telestream

Register Now!