Workflows and AI: Tata Comms Media on remote production going bigger scale

By Robert Szabo-Rowe, Tata Comms Media head of engineering and product management.

A month into 2025 and several key trends are continuing to transform live sports production and delivery, from scaling remote and cloud-based workflows to the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI).

Remote production will continue its evolution as an efficient, flexible and scalable means of covering mainstream live sports events, becoming increasingly adept at addressing the complexity of modern broadcasting and streaming. Remote production is still evolving from its start as a solution for small scale sports events to being widely adopted for global live productions.

Broadcasters will increasingly use remote production to handle large scale events that entail numerous camera feeds sent back to central production hubs, reducing the need for onsite production crews.

The result will be to enable more production teams to manage multiple events in a short time span. Some of the world’s most high profile sports organisations are shifting their entire productions to remote set ups, allowing for more streamlined and cost effective operations, with many more expected in the coming year.

The US standard

In the US, 1080p HD with HDR will continue to emerge as the go-to production format, especially for large events. Unlike Europe, where 4K adoption has surged, the US is opting for 1080p HDR as the sweet spot between quality and bandwidth efficiency. 2025 will see a broader embrace of this format, particularly in live sports, where more camera feeds will be integrated to deliver higher quality content without the additional cost and complexity of 4K.

IP-based delivery and JPEG XS transmission

On the transmission side, more broadcasters will turn to IP-based delivery in 2025, largely to support large scale remote productions. Along with this trend, increasingly the industry will see IP delivery via public internet-based transmission, reducing the need for traditional fibre while still enabling broadcasters to transport low latency feeds safely and efficiently.

This year, we’ll also see more companies utilising JPEG XS, a technology that offers lower latency and higher quality compression, ideal for live events and sports broadcasts. JPEG XS empowers live sports event owners and rightsholders to transport SMPTE 2110 streams, allowing them to produce higher resolution video to help them meet consumer demand for 4K and HDR content.

AI integration

AI is poised to revolutionise broadcast production in 2025, becoming more deeply integrated into broadcast and streaming workflows. AI and deep learning are already helping sports producers to optimise workflows, automating vital processes. That can be labour intensive.

Automated closed captioning is already being used for lower and mid tier productions, reducing the need for human captioning services. AI is also being deployed for tasks like automated clipping and editing, where highlights are created instantly and posted to social media. AI-driven dubbing and automated language detection are expected to gain traction in 2025, allowing broadcasters to localise content more quickly and efficiently.

One particularly exciting use of AI is in metadata generation. AI systems can scan video archives and automatically tag content with detailed metadata, making it easier for production teams to retrieve and repurpose assets and to meet compliance requirements. This capability will save time and streamline workflows.

AI in editing and technical direction

While AI is beginning to impact lower tier productions, it hasn’t yet replaced the role of the technical director in mid to high tier productions, but where possible, live sports content creators are expected to tap AI to perform this function in 2025 which is not surprising, as staff is the biggest cost of most live productions.

Automated systems for cutting shows have been introduced for smaller events, but they haven’t been widely adopted for more complex, large scale productions. However, as AI technology advances, it’s expected that these systems will gradually be introduced into major sports broadcasts as 2025 progresses.

Growth of cloud-based tools

Cloud-based production will continue to spread though the industry, supporting distributed workflows, particularly for smaller productions and shoulder programming. While high tier productions have been slower to adopt cloud workflows, the growing demand for flexible, cost effective solutions is driving the broader shift toward cloud-based production environments.

We can expect to see cloud tools being used more extensively to produce and deliver more secondary programming for higher tier broadcasters, streamers and leagues and teams launching direct to consumer services. In 2025, we also can expect to see more widespread use of cloud-based channel origination and playout.

Another growing trend is the use of cloud-based workflows for remote commentary, especially for multi-language broadcasts. Broadcasters are increasingly leveraging cloud technology to add commentary from remote locations to live production feeds, without the need for on-site commentators. This is particularly useful for international events and will continue to expand in 2025 as more broadcasters adopt these workflows for multilingual programming.

Enhancing the fan experience

All of these specific trends point to one overarching theme: 2025 promises better viewing experiences for sports fans. Innovation in remote production, IP transmission, AI-driven workflows, and cloud-based tools will further empower live sports content producers to deliver on fan expectations as 2025 progresses, not only transforming the way content is produced, distributed and consumed worldwide but enabling greater efficiency, agility and scalability.

 

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