FIS Alpine World Ski Championships: Broadcasters deliver live IP video TX

TVUPack IP video transmission solutions were used by broadcasters to deliver live video from the recently completed 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Vail and Beaver Creek, Colorado, USA. During the event, broadcasters used TVU Networks’ mobile cellular uplink backpack solution to deliver live shots from various venues at the World Championships and throughout the town of Vail.

As a part of its standard operating procedure for major sporting events around the globe, TVU Networks had a significant on-location presence at the World Championships, providing back up equipment and TVU personnel support for broadcasters using TVUPack at the event. Moreover, TVU deployed additional bandwidth networks such as private wireless hotspot and MIMO microwave mesh to ensure a high level of transmission reliability and dependability in the higher mountain elevations.

“TVUPack was an essential tool for TV8’s coverage of the World Championships. Often times, the ability to go live from the mountain can be limited by terrain or challenging bandwidth environments. However, TVUPack performed beautifully whenever we used it to go live – regardless of the location of our shoot. The pack was easy for our reporters to operate, and was an essential part of our production plan,” said Terry Michaud, Broadcast Engineer, TV8, Vail Resorts.

“TVU support during the event was outstanding. TVU has been a true technology partner for us, and TVU engineers were there every step of the way to ensure that each live shot was executed without incident. Their high level of support provided valuable piece of mind to us as we covered our biggest and most prestigious event of the year,” said Michaud.

With its simple one-button operation and ability to simultaneously transmit over multiple combinations of cellular, WIFI, microwave, and BGAN, Ka-band and Ku-band satellite links, TVUPack enables broadcasters to deliver live streaming video from practically any location. TVUPack also offers broadcasters TVU’s proprietary Inverse StatMux Plus transmission protocol and Smart VBR technology to ensure enhanced resiliency and superior picture quality in fluctuating bandwidth conditions, as well as the ability to transmit HD video with sub-second latency.