Buzz 16 on pulling together the Premiership Women’s Rugby Final 2024 with Limitless Broadcast and Moov
Gloucester-Hartpury and the Bristol Bears contested the Premiership Women’s Rugby Final 2024 on Saturday 22 June, with TNT sport’s TV coverage provided by Buzz 16, with technical services provider Limitless Broadcast glueing the show together and graphics from Moov.
We spoke to Buzz 16’s managing director, Duncan East, ahead of the match about how the production would operate at Exeter’s Sandy Park Stadium.
What are the challenges for this production?
We were challenged with bringing the Premiership Women’s Rugby to life on a major TV broadcaster – TNT Sports – for the very first time and we therefore had to get it right. We didn’t have long though to set everything up, which meant we needed to be fast, agile, and creative with our workflows and production solutions. Another challenge was, like with every project we work on, we really wanted to maximise the budget and ensure that we gave it the full treatment it deserved.
How are you overcoming those issues?
It meant we had to find the best people possible to make it happen and work alongside some of the best in the business in Moov and Limitless. This included using very experienced camera operators who really understand sport and know how to cover it and overcome hurdles with having less resources than they’re used to.
Within our production team at Buzz 16 we have a great mix of experienced people and up-and-coming talent who are all dedicated to helping grow the women’s game, by creating the best possible product for TNT Sports and their customers.
What technologies are you using that stand out on this production?
Moov has looked to push the boundaries of what is possible with only one machine and operator. Running a Chyron Prime unit with two outputs means they provide quality presentation graphics and world feed graphics in a cost-effective way.
Moov’s team of in-house operators and software developers collaborated to help build and run a single interface, ‘Moov Orion’ controlling the world feed stop start clock, tables, team news, and live match stats via integration with Stats Perform Data.
Due to the nature of rugby match timing being non-continuous during matches, a custom integration into the Moov Orion graphics control system was created, to give a live connection to the on-site timing devices via cloud-hosted systems provided by Limitless. This adds a fully automated clock graphic output into the system that also gives our operators access to match and competition data from Stats Perform as well as their full graphics playout control.
What innovations are you using for this production in audio and video?
With this production, the entire delivery is based on our modular, full remote production approach. Rather than just remotely controlling a truck on site, Limitless’ approach is entirely remote, and involves bringing all feeds off-site with high-quality encoding back to their remote galleries.
Such a workflow allows all elements of production to occur remotely, including a VT department of seven, with all feeds, including the super-slow camera, available in EVS. Due to the fully remote approach, they have developed innovative ways to untether the facilities needed on-site from the gallery, including tally, comms, racking, and return vision.
Solutions had to be found for remote television match official (TMO), based in the Limitless hub, including comms to and from the on-site officials. We remote all audio mixing and monitoring, requiring minimal latency, but maintaining synchronisation with the video feeds.
This remote model also significantly reduces our carbon footprint. With fewer people and less equipment needed on-site, there is a notable reduction in travel and transport emissions. This aligns with Buzz 16’s commitment to sustainability and sets a benchmark for future television production in the UK, by challenging traditional broadcast solutions and embracing new technologies, we are not only enhancing the quality of untethered remote productions but also contributing to a more sustainable industry.
How have you developed the graphics for this production?
With the Premiership Women’s Rugby being broadcast on TNT Sports, Moov’s inhouse design team have worked closely with the TNT Sports creative team to enhance the pre-existing pack and create bespoke presentation graphics templates week-on-week.
Rugby has several nuances that need to be factored in within the graphics pack, which has a few design language distinctions itself. This is especially the case with the score-bug regarding Bonus points, red and yellow cards, and it’s important that the graphics pack can cater for a number of eventualities and is flexible enough to display as much critical information at any time.
Having the support of such an experienced graphics company has taken a lot of the pressure away from our live production. The graphics in rugby are essential to the coverage with so much detail needed to be on screen for the viewer to follow the game, so having a reliable provider has been essential.
How successful has this season’s production been?
This season has been hugely successful. We believe we have brought the very best production to a great sport. Using the knowledge we have already gained covering Premiership Rugby to help elevate not only the Premiership Women’s Rugby but the players and characters within the Women’s game.
We had to be creative with workflows and worked closely with our broadcast partners to get the best out of every area and create the best possible product together.
We are really looking forward to enhancing the coverage further throughout the next season starting in October.