Driving change: The Switch and the critical tech trends transforming live sports production and delivery in 2024
By Robert Szabo-Rowe, The Switch senior vice president, engineering and product management.
We have seen a tremendous journey in live video production and delivery since we emerged more fully from the pandemic over the last year. Many of the technologies that media companies deployed, proved and improved on over the previous two years are now developing at breakneck speed. These fast-evolving technologies are revolutionising many aspects of workflows and transmission in live sports and esports.
At the same time, tough economic conditions are impacting the industry globally, making greater efficiency and flexibility vital, especially in live sports coverage, where rights costs continue to soar, and viewing patterns are evolving fast. Innovation in all areas of production and distribution of live events has become increasingly critical and is driving several key trends.
Deep learning and AI making deeper inroads
A key trend we saw begin to take off in 2023, which will undoubtedly pick up pace in 2024, is the growing impact of deep learning (DL) and artificial intelligence (AI) across live sports production and delivery. We have seen DL and AI used for close captioning and near-real-time highlight generation. Those uses will develop further, and the technologies are poised to be applied way beyond that.
DL and AI will become increasingly critical in optimising workflows to help generate content and drive productions and we see it affecting staffing at some point not too far into the future. We have already observed that some companies out there are trialling multi-camera systems that automate the show-cutting process. It may be scary to consider, but jobs such as technical director may not be needed for lower-tier live productions soon. The appeal is simple; staff is the biggest cost of most live productions.
More cloud for sports productions
Cloud has made huge strides over the last year, really since it began to be used much more widely during the pandemic and in the aftermath when it was demonstrated to be reliable, flexible, and economical.
In the coming year, we will see more acceptance of the cloud, not just for certain productions but for channel origination and playout. And it is not simply going to be applied to lower-tier sports with simple workflows, but we are now beginning to see cloud technologies used for more complex, higher-tier live event productions by broadcasters and the big streaming services, which are moving into live sports in a big way.
Cloud production and delivery services not only give the major rightsholders greater flexibility to do more with the content they’ve paid a great deal for, but it ensures that those producers of tier-two, tier-three live sports – lower league football clubs, division III college teams, niche esports tournaments, even secondary school games – can get on air. Cloud-based production and distribution will enable more of those operating on a tight budget with very few cameras that would never have been able to before to create and distribute near-professional-quality productions in 2024.
Greater reliance on IP and public internet
Along with the growth in the use of cloud technologies for all aspects of live sports coverage comes the extension of IP as people rely on it more and more for contribution, transmission, and satellite distribution replacement. This growth will extend throughout 2024 and beyond.
At the same time, it won’t just be fibre used for major sports productions but the public internet. Now, the internet is so pervasive and bandwidth sufficiently high that increasingly media companies and rightsholders are using video over the internet for contribution, distribution, and even satellite replacement.
It’s not as reliable as fibre, and the latencies involved are much higher – which means that it’s harder to do stuff interactively for the back-and-forth of complex tier 1 productions. But for more straightforward live productions, distribution through cloud-based transmission via IP can move signals around the world. The upshot is that it works for lower-tier sports and, along with cloud tools, will open up more possibilities for them in 2024.
Going bigger with 100G
The flipside of the coin is that world class, high value live sports events produced by top-tier rightsholders will increasingly rely on fibre for its premium quality and super-low latency. 100G fibre gives these organisations even more capability to drive the latency out of production and transmission to support added capabilities like in-broadcast betting.
In addition, with a number of major sports organisations running big live events preparing to do even more remote production in 2024 than in 2023, the use of 100G networks will become more widespread to support the increasing deployment of REMI workflows. These remote set-ups not only boost flexibility and cost effectiveness by reducing travel and shipping but also support the industry trend toward sustainability.
What’s more, in tapping the increased capacity of 100G, sports organisations and media companies will be positioned to adopt JPEG XS compression to transport SMPTE 2110 streams at low latency, enabling those upgrading their infrastructure to produce higher resolution video. The result is content owners seeking the ultimate video quality at the absolute lowest possible latency can support ongoing consumer expectations of 4K and HDR content.
Overall, this trend and the others point in one direction: they free leagues, teams, other organisations and rightsholders at every level of sports to be more creative in their approach to live broadcasting and streaming, with the real winner being the fan who wants the best possible experience as they watch their favourite events.