Sustainability goals of Rugby World Cup 2023 boosted by transmission technology from host broadcast HBS supported by Lawo

The Roland-Garros MRC for the Rugby World Cup 2023

World Rugby is partnering once again with with HBS – which has a long standing relationship with German manufacturer Lawo – on the Rugby World Cup 2023.

The goals of both World Rugby and HBS for this event is to provide unforgettable moments using cutting edge technology. However, that goal is also tied to a need to create a smaller physical and therefore also carbon footprint for the IBC infrastructure for the live coverage that is installed at Roland-Garros in Paris.

Those goals are being met by a dedicated fibre optic SMPTE ST2110 network architecture, which has been deployed to connect the arenas in Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Saint-Denis and Saint-Étienne to the IBC. On-site OB trucks at these venues connect to the network via Lawo .edge hyper-density gateways, which are equipped with two processing blades and two rear I/O plates in a hot-spare redundant configuration.

The .edge units handle all the bidirectional stream traffic between the venues and the IBC over Orange’s transport network, and integrate seamlessly with HBS’ existing IP core infrastructure.

As flexible and advanced technology is essential to ensure everything runs smoothly, HBS decided to take advantage of Lawo’s Home Apps before their official launch at the IBC Show in Amsterdam that kicked off on 15 September.

The microservice-based Home Apps run on 1U high standard servers and can be used in the most agile of combinations, while also allowing HBS to save space, weight and energy.

Commented Karlheinz Amberg, Lawo’s director of global events: “Running in parallel with HBS’ existing vm_dmv solution, the Home Multiviewer app with a freely configurable number of inputs and outputs is currently proving that it is ready to be released. The Home UDX Converter app, which was already put through its paces in Australia and New Zealand, is being used for a host of format, colour space and other conversion tasks.”

“The beauty of the Home Apps and .edge is that they are incredibly powerful and integrate seamlessly with our existing IP set up,” explained Bart Lucassen, the director of engineering at HBS. “They help us deliver on our promise to provide World Rugby with a unique viewing experience here in France.

“In addition to providing cutting-edge technology, Lawo is second to none regarding outstanding services,” Lucassen added. “Our decision to go with Lawo has always been based on the conviction that Lawo does not actually sell products – it provides HBS and its customer base with real-world solutions.”

The number of IP streams being sent from the action through France are controlled by two separate VSM clusters, adding intuitive broadcast control to a unique technological offering.

Concluded Amberg: “We are extremely proud of our long-standing partnership with HBS. It has spawned so many ideas and products that have helped our customers produce more content with increasingly agile and intuitive tools. It is a great benefit of this partnership to know that our Hom Apps will hit the ground running when they are released shortly after IBC 2023.”