Lift and shift: NEP Germany and Dyn Media break away for more content

It is always the big sporting events that make the most noise, and this year has been very, very noisy. Fan engagement has blossomed as broadcasters and content creators have adapted to consumers’ ravenous appetite for stories by reinventing how they produce live content. It’s all been pretty revolutionary.

Far away from those big sporting events, German sports streamer Dyn Media has also been reinventing the way that it produces live content, and it is no less of a technical revolution. Launched in August 2023, Dyn Media is the brainchild of Christian Seifert, former MD of the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL). His idea was not to concentrate on those big events, but to deliver live sports content directly to the 17 million German sports fans who follow handball, basketball, volleyball, table tennis and hockey.

“We are responsible for the whole production process for every sport and league for Dyn Media, including the host production content we’ll be doing with NEP Germany for Handball Bundesliga and Basketball Bundesliga in Germany,” says Verena Göttl, managing director of Dyn Productions, the daughter company of Dyn Media. “We have ventured into uncharted territory with this concept and are still at the beginning of a journey, but we have already made significant progress.”

Progress has definitely been made. Now into its second year, Dyn Media operates a full glass-to-glass IP infrastructure across a fully distributed production model. In its first season, it broadcast over 2,500 national and international games, while its partnerships with ARD, ZDF, and Welt TV with Bild Sport helped it achieve a cumulative reach of almost 500 million viewers.

Verena Göttl, managing director of Dyn Productions, daughter company of Dyn Media

Pure distribution

This phenomenal amount of content is possible thanks to Dyn’s media network, designed and operated by NEP Germany and is a masterclass in pure distributed production, with two large remote production control rooms (PCRs) at NEP Germany’s headquarters in Munich and four more at Dyn Media’s headquarters in Cologne.

It is designed around six portable venue kits which are shipped around event venues. Each kit has two Prodigy MC units for connecting I/O, and two Prodigy MP units that have additional audio processing, both paired for redundancy. Everything is connected via a SMPTE 2110 network with all audio signals transported to the hub in Munich and received by one of eight processing units dedicated to creating the final audio mix for one transmission feed.

In fact, all shared hardware for automated event mixing is centrally located at NEP’s Munich hub, accessible to the entire network. The hub hosts an array of advanced equipment, including multiple Prodigy DirectOut units, five Mac Minis for running plugins, a Riedel Artist 1024 system, the backend of three Kula vision mixers, six Riedel Simplylive Production Suite systems, two Lawo MC²36 consoles for manually mixing larger events, and two EVS systems.

Meanwhile, Dyn’s PCRs in Cologne also provide control over Riedel’s Simplylive units, and with the Kula vision mixer, is also capable of producing bigger events with more cameras and more signals. An additional processing unit in Cologne adds delay and runs NEP Germany’s “smart com” commentator system.

The network boasts a total of 34 x DirectOut Prodigy units, a configuration that NEP Germany managing director Zlatan Gavran asserts is, “for sure the largest Prodigy setup in the world”.  It delivers IP connectivity to more than 40 venues and is managed by NEP’s proprietary management system, Total Facility Control (TFC).

Flexibility and control

Having first worked with them as a freelance audio engineer in 1999, the mastermind behind this flexible audio network is Michael Lindermeir, who joined NEP Germany as a contractor in 2016 and has been its head of audio since 2021.

“We can control the network on hardware or on a proprietary GUI that operates TFC to manage the entire broadcast and network infrastructure,” says Lindermeir. “All the signal transport is direct between the venues and the hub in Munich, where we process everything for transmission, while Cologne provides control over the network.

“Having so much control gives us the ability to create many workarounds: the commentator can be sitting on site, the PCR people can be in Cologne, and the audio mixer can be in Munich. Or the audio mixer can be in Munich with the commentator and the PCR crew in Cologne. Or it can all be in Cologne, or all in Munich. And we can switch very quickly between all these different signal flows.”

NEP Germany’s bespoke GUI makes it easy to to manage all routing between all streams and devices. Click on the image to view a larger version.

Signal simplifier

While the ability to switch workflows is provided by TFC, the system still deals with a huge number of signals, which Lindermeir was keen to simplify; luckily, NEP’s signal management system is designed for this.

“We handle all our streaming with TFC,” says Lindermeir. “It’s fast and dependable, but crucially it enabled NEP Germany to create a bespoke GUI to bring all the different venue kits together into all the different production units.”

Developed over the last 12 months as Dyn Media’s streaming service has bedded in, the bespoke GUI is a custom workflow implemented by NEP Germany that utilises TFC to assign different tech from different locations within the network; TFC seamlessly manages all routing between streams and devices, regardless of their location, operating in the background. This applies not only to the media transport layer but also to control protocol layers, such as GPI, fader panels, and other control data.

Lindermeir notes: “Grouping everything together means we can assign entire control panels to specific venue kits or cores and all the granular routing is happening in the background. It keeps everything very simple.”

The GUI features a series of vertical columns which list all available venue kits and audio rooms as well as available Simplylive units, EVS units, processors and commentary positions. It allows a user to connect an entire workflow chain in less than a minute and enables every stream to work in multiple combinations. In this way any venue kit can work with any audio booth and with any PCR, all the way up to the TX audio processor.

“When we launched the network in 2023 this workflow was not ready,” says Lindermeir. “We had to route every source and destination from all the streams individually. Every stream across multiple locations was patched manually in the TFC control window. This makes things much simpler for everyone.”

The mastermind behind this flexible audio network for Dyn Media is Michael Lindermeir, who joined NEP Germany as a contractor in 2016 and has been its head of audio since 2021

Consistency with snapshots

Lindermeir and his team also developed a self-mix workflow where an audio operator can sit in any sound booth in any of the Munich or Cologne PCRs to trigger automated responses that remotely control the Prodigy units using DirectOut’s JSON protocol. This allows them to automate functions like opening/closing microphones and controlling music playback and creates a shadow function between the main TX processor and the venue kit for additional control and security.

“The audio operator can hear everything at the venue and operate faders that simply trigger the automation. With no director in their ear, the operator can concentrate on optimising the sound; we call it the self-mix, and in this way, we can produce up to six games simultaneously with just three or four operators.”

Lindermeir says that this system also improves sound quality. Working remotely not only gives NEP Germany the time to add AI signal processing tools to improve the sound of troublesome signals, but using automation and snapshots delivers consistency across all the different audio feeds to optimise the sound without having to coordinate with other operators.

“Covering six events with six different OB vans would require six different people who are working on six different transmission lines,” says Lindermeir. “In our application, all the audio feeds are treated exactly the same way. The triggers can come from the producer, the director, or even from the commentator opening and closing his own mic. Behind the front end, it’s not just about opening and closing the microphone. On the back end, dynamically changing scene-based snapshots ensure a consistent and balanced sound mix.”

NEP Germany’s network for Dyn Media connects every venue kit to its Hub in Munich and provides additional control from Dyn’s Cologne facility. Click on the image to view a larger version.

Getting the timing right

Meanwhile, monitor and ambience mixes are all done using the Prodigy units onsite at the venue.

“These units handle the local mix to guarantee low latency monitoring for the commentators and talent at the venue,” says Lindermeir. “They also produce the ambience mix using the field of play and crowd mics on-site to ensure that there are no delays between commentary spill and the crowd ambience noise.

“Clean signals, such as commentator or guest mics that are needed for the final transmission mix are sent individually from the venue to the central hub to be mixed for the TX output in Munich, and as the monitor mix is created on site, everything that is created in Munich, such as music and EVS playbacks, is sent back to the venue in a similar way to a mix minus feed.”

Watch this space

The system works, delivering more product, more consistency, better quality, and all with less people. In its first season, viewership exceeded 100,000 within a few months, with one match between THW Kiel and SC Magdeburg on 7 February achieving 115,000 streams alone.

“Since the start, we have already made significant progress and are very pleased with the results achieved so far,” says Göttl. “Over the next 12 months, we will continue to optimise the processes and workflows, working closely with the users to enhance outcomes and operational reliability.”