Jump shot: Broadcast Solutions and NEP Germany join forces to support Dyn Media’s remotely produced basketball and handball coverage

Last summer, NEP Germany, supported by systems integrator Broadcast Solutions, opened a remote production facility for the sports streaming service Dyn Media.

Being used for coverage of basketball and handball matches, NEP Germany is operating the setup as a managed service for Dyn.

NEP Germany and Broadcast Solutions worked together to design the facility. Broadcast Solutions then took responsibility for installation and commissioning in both Munich and Cologne, covering audio, video and other elements of the facility including air conditioning, fire protection, and power.

Andreas Heyden, CEO of Dyn Media says of the new facility: “The smooth cooperation and high level of commitment have been instrumental in enabling us to build one of the most advanced production environments in Europe in just a few months.”

Broadcast Solutions designed and installed the facility, providing six units it calls ‘venue kits’. Each has a core rack in a flight case with three stage boxes, connected over fibre. Typically six cameras plus minicams feed into the core rack, along with microphones and other audio sources, all using SMPTE ST 2110 standard equipment.

This compact set-up means the entire system for an outside broadcast can get to site in a single VW Crafter van, and be set up and run by just a few people onsite. The result is said to reduce the carbon footprint of the operation.

All signals are routed to NEP Germany’s headquarters in Munich, where Broadcast Solutions has built two large control rooms around Grass Valley Kula switchers, a central equipment room, and a network operation centre (NOC) handling the central management of signal transmission from all arenas, to and from Cologne, as well as to the cloud and OTT platforms.

“The high level of commitment has been instrumental in enabling us to build one of the most advanced production environments in Europe in just a few months.”

The NOC allows flexible allocation of venue kits to the production control rooms in Cologne and Munich, and several Riedel Simplylive Production Suites serve as production control systems for smaller productions or can be used as replay facilities.

Audio in the venues is controlled remotely from sound quality control (SQC) rooms and the normalised signals are then dispatched to the production control rooms. Dyn is free to send commentators to the event, or there are voiceover rooms as part of the new facilities for off-the-tube commentary. Audio mixing largely uses the Prodigy from DirectOut Technologies.

NEP Germany and Broadcast Solutions have also designed and built one large gallery and three small control rooms in Dyn’s headquarters in Cologne, plus the associated audio facilities.

These share the hardware installed in Munich, so Dyn can locate its editorial team in either city and have the same functionality, while controlling capital costs and minimising energy consumption.

The six venue kits were built in Broadcast Solutions’ workshops in Bingen.

Rainer Kampe, CTO of Broadcast Solutions adds: “This was a very exciting project, with the added challenge of a very tight timescale. We had our first conversations at IBC in 2022, and we knew that we had to design and build a completely fresh approach to remote production, and have it ready to go on air in the summer of 2023.”

Dyn has the rights to show live and highlights coverage of all games in the Handball Bundesliga, 2nd Handball Bundesliga, DHB Cup, Handball Bundesliga Frauen, EHF Champions League, EHF European League and the Basketball Bundesliga and the Basketball Champions League.