2018 FIFA World Cup: LiveU helps deliver 15,000 hours’ transmission with 485 onsite units

LiveU has released live broadcasting figures for the FIFA World Cup in Russia, revealing that 485 of its units were used by customers from over 40 countries.

The numbers have at least doubled since the 2014 FIFA World Cup, it says, and now include over 15,000 hours of live broadcasting, over 30,000 live sessions and 36TB of live transmission – with LiveU’s LU600 4K HEVC solution enabling customers to broadcast “more hours with less data.”

Customers used LiveU kit to follow the teams, interview the players and the fans and capture the atmosphere with daily live feeds.

To ensure high-quality transmission, LiveU provided bandwidth guarantees for connectivity in the 12 host cities. The offering provided a special add-on priority SIMs package for streaming high-quality live video, enabling customers to reach 20Mbps uplink and deliver HD live feeds even from the most crowded locations.

LiveU had a dedicated technical team on site, managing the logistics and providing 24/7 support, with two designated distribution centres in Moscow and St Petersburg. The project was overseen by the company’s local partner, Media Project.

Samuel Wasserman, LiveU’s CEO and co-founder, said: “This year’s FIFA World Cup has been more successful than ever, also for LiveU, combining our over 10 years’ experience covering major sporting events with our proven HEVC technology. LiveU’s HEVC technology worked flawlessly throughout the tournament, showing its capabilities for live sports coverage in the most challenging conditions.

“Much of the customer feedback we received highlighted the optimal signal quality in and around the stadiums, as well as our portability and cost-effectiveness.”

LiveU’s FIFA World Cup video case study