Broadcaster selects Haivision Makito for sports backhaul

Leading Canadian multimedia company and owner of CTV, Bell Media, has purchased Haivision Makito low-latency, high-performance H.264 encoders and decoders for CTV use. The station will use the appliances for broadcast backhaul and monitoring operations during coverage of high profile sporting events.

In total, Bell Media has purchased 35 Makito encoders and 22 Makito decoders. The low-latency inter-continental HD video pipeline established with the Makitos and a dedicated fiber link is used by CTV in two ways. Firstly, multiple HD video feeds from any given event location are encoded into H.264 and sent back to the CTV broadcast centre in Toronto for incorporation with in-studio commentary for news pieces. Secondly, CTV establishes multiple return feeds to event locations so onsite production crews can have immediate and real-time access to other broadcast stations in their home region.

Andrews Marchisio, project lead at Bell Media, comments: “CTV has been transferring unusually large amounts of video from remote locations this year, so we needed to ensure our broadcast backhaul operation could handle the demand with ease. Low-latency, high-performance encoding was crucial, which is why we chose Haivision. There’s a very short list of companies that provide the level of latency we need, and when it comes to ultra-low latency for broadcast backhaul, Haivision is one of the best in the industry.”

JoAnne Gaudreau, vice-president of marketing at Haivision, adds: “Broadcasters have a huge need for video transport across the globe outside of the traditional scope of contribution. The Makito is widely accepted due to its specific price performance capabilities. The Makito helps broadcasters deliver a large complement of quality streams to decision makers throughout their organisations regardless of location.”