Match ball: Bringing the PSA German Open 2024 to global viewers when on-site connectivity failed to deliver

The German Open 2024 held in Hamburg was the first event in the country for the PSA, and the first time it turned up to find no broadcast connectivity available

The German Open 2024 held in Hamburg by the Professional Squash Association (PSA) was between a rock and a hard place on getting its broadcast out to viewers from The Sportwerk Centre when the team arrived on site to find that sufficient connectivity was not available. That was until its transmission and distribution partner, Auriga Networks, delivered a kill shot with the Open Broadcast Systems’ 5G Flyaway.

The Open [3 to 7 April] was the first event the PSA has ever held in Germany, and as such the venue was an unknown to organisers of the event, the PSA’s Andy Malley, head of operations and Dan Dobby, production manager for SquashTV.

Dobby comments on what happened at the German Open 2024: “Most of the production side is definitely developed weeks in advance, but it’s only when we get on site that we actually understand what is available to us. Dealing with the internet company or the person on site who manages the network [in advance], to then actually [getting to site and] just unravelling the things that haven’t been mentioned. The majority of the events we return to, we know they’ll work, but the events that are new, like the German Open, we weren’t sure.”

The PSA’s transmission and distribution partner, Auriga Networks, delivered a kill shot for the lack of connectivity at the German Open 2024 with the OBE 5G Flyaway from Open Broadcast Systems

Challenging transmissions

The PSA operates Tournaments around the world, everywhere from Europe, the US, Asia down to New Zealand, in a number of iconic locations, from the base of the pyramids in Egypt, to Grand Central Station in New York.

All of these events are broadcast both to the internet on SquashTV and to terrestrial broadcasters, TNT Sport. Amazon Prime, and other global rights holders via BT Tower in London.

Says Stephen Flood, manager director at Auriga Networks, the PSA’s video distribution partner: “When running multiple courts for a tournament, there are around 40 or so live feeds to be delivered. The general workflow is to land a broadcast quality HD SDI feed in London for subsequent distribution and re-encoding off to the broadcast partners in multiple formats, so regardless of event location, the broadcast distribution point is always from London.

“The contribution feed from event site to London is principally over IP with conventional satellite being used in a few territories working in conjunction with local broadcasters, IP being the principle for cost reasons.”

However, Flood adds: “There are a number of challenges both organisational and technical. Squash is a very fast game, ball speeds are as fast as tennis but over a much smaller screen area, so encoding quality and bandwidth are paramount for ball visibility. Tournaments are around a week long and long 12 hour days, so maintaining consistent connectivity is challenging, compared to news which can be a three minute package, or football which is four hours.”

Crowds watch the PSA German Open 2024 unfold

No connectivity

Network availability on site is often challenging for the PSA team, but over the years, revisiting sites for competitions means most issues become manageable. Says Flood: “We can deal with diversity and redundant routes even using internet bearers – Auriga is a specialist ISP so can select peers and backbones for each event – so selective use of the internet is the approach.”

However, the German Open was at risk of not being able to broadcast when the team arrived on site and realised there was no sufficient connectivity that would enable them to broadcast.

Flood notes: “Redundant dual connectivity from site is a real issue. Most event buildings only have a single viable connection or provider and this is where 5G comes in, and at times you discover you have nothing as we did in Hamburg.

“We have experimented with 4G in the past, but there are too many issues configuring local sim cards and usually discovering that the promised unlimited data consumption is capped and the whole thing becomes impractical,” continues Flood. “Low cost satellite, Leo’s, Starlink etc on its own is not a solution; there are too many drop outs when a satellite is missing from the constellation and it is not available or legal in all territories, nor is line of site or roof access always practical (Grand Central Station would be fun!). Crew demands increase as well in dealing with these solutions. However, this is where the Open Broadcast Systems bonded solution and global roaming SIMs on pay as you go become a game changer.”

The PSA German Open 2024 took place in Hamburg from 3 to 7 April

Bonded 5G

Open Broadcast Systems launched its 5G Flyaway at NAB earlier this year. Built in collaboration with Zixi, the 5G bonding solution lets sports broadcasters reach fibre and satellite picture quality over cellular networks and deliver them as standard Constant Bitrate MPEG Transport Streams.

Flood comments: “In Hamburg we looked at various options, like could we put a sat truck in and things like that, but they were cost prohibitive; Hamburg wasn’t an exceptionally large event with a full on broadcast budget.

“But we’d been talking to Kieran [Kieran Kunhya, founder and CEO at Open Broadcast Systems] and he said, “I’ve got this thing, it’s really good, we’ve got no idea if it works, come and use it”. So we went, “yeah, all right then”. And we did and it worked. He came over to support it because the event was close to the airport so he literally flew in, put in two boxes and ran away again. Set up on site was straightforward and the key thing was actually the proximity of the event to masts; the main 5G mast was something like 200 metres away.

“And one of the things that has been found on this [5G Flyaway] is you can actually select your networks and you can select your towers,” continues Steve. “So you can go into towers that are further away from the event to avoid event traffic, which is one of the core problems with 5G. So you can select your 5G mast network.”

The Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway external weatherproof 5G directional routers can be placed up to 100 metres (300 feet) away. This delivers connectivity for those sports broadcasters based in areas of poor connectivity, such as underneath a stadium, as well as allowing the use of distant cell towers, keeping traffic separate from spectators. This is achieved using a single ethernet cable, meaning existing cabling can be repurposed without any reduction in signal quality. It is available with a global data plan, avoiding the need to swap SIM cards and providing an affordable pay as you go data plan.

Flood adds: “This is the first thing that’s come around where it [shows mobile networks for broadcast have] truly has come of age.”

When paired with the OBE C-100/C-200 encoders, the Flyaway can be used to deliver high quality feeds the way sports broadcasters expect with 10-bit 4:2:2 video, numerous audio tracks, in exactly the same way they do over fibre and satellite. These feeds can then be delivered to existing IRDs via protocols such as Zixi and SRT without the need for vendor-specific equipment. In addition, satellite systems such as Starlink and OneWeb can be used to aid connectivity in remote regions.

Transmission success

On the 5G Flyaway, Malley says: “From my perspective, it gave us a solution at an event where we had at that point no broadcast solution, in terms of no IP connectivity and no broadcast line that would be suitable for the type of broadcast that we do. So it gave us a solution for an event that typically we had no other option for.”

Dobby adds: “I’ve been in similar situations where we’ve had to try a different solution or had to basically just roll with the punches. With this one, when it comes to Open Broadcast Systems’ solution, we followed a lot of what Steve directed to us to. We’re very much in the learning curve of, “okay, well how do we plug it in, how do we get it distributed?”. The guys told me everything’s up and running in a quicker time than it usually takes for some of the events we have, so it was actually quite a good relief.”

Continues Dobby: “Sometimes it happens where you can spend at least two or three days trying to sort a connection [remotely], then you end up going into the event where our connection still just isn’t viable, but we can still get something out. Whereas this time everything worked, which makes a hell of a difference from a production side to just hit the ground running without any technical issues, when we’re such a small team as well.”

Adds Malley: “Our primary specification that we have from a connectivity perspective is unlikely to change when it’s executed and executed well. It is an extremely reliable service and broadcast. What we’re looking at here is a redundancy option, for dual connectivity when we don’t have the capability to provide two independent lines, and this solution gives us a potential option to have a separate independent backup broadcast option, which is just more of a solid product for what we’re offering to our partners and distributors.”

Malley concludes: “This solution just gives us another kind of string to the bow really in terms of creating a better package and solution to make sure that we always have redundancy lines.”