HDR Denmark uses Nevion IP for remote production horse racing coverage

HDR Denmark has bought Nevion equipment and software to allow it to offer IP-based remote production services for horse racing.

The Danish facilities supplier is currently using the Nevion technology to aid STV’s live horse racing coverage on the new Fast Track channel, allowing the producer to have less crew on-site and to make better use of the resources available in its central studio and control room in Copenhagen.

The products purchased include Nevion’ s software-defined media node Virtuoso for JPEG 2000 IP WAN transport and its VikinX Sublime X2 hybrid router for baseband routing in the central facilities. Flashlink equipment for AV processing and Tally have also been acquired while VideoIPath is being used to control the whole set-up from the central location.

Productions now take place using just one cameraman and two journalists at the race-track and one host, one guest and one producer at the central location in Copenhagen.

The equipment is transported to the race-track in a car and set up by the cameraman onsite. Live productions feature up to six video feeds from the race-tracks and three return feeds, as well as multiple audio, including comms.

STV plans to provide coverage of 260 race days a year from nine different tracks for Fast Track, which is owned by Danish Horse Racing, the organisation that holds the rights to the sport in Denmark and represents the Danish horse racing industry. 

Marc Bostrøm, a system integrator at HDR Denmark, said: “With horse racing having a comparatively small audience in Denmark, the production could not be of the same magnitude as some of the larger shows and events we handle, otherwise it would not be viable. We recognized that IP remote production was the only option to achieve the level of nimbleness and cost-effectiveness we needed. The Nevion solution provided all this and gave us the centralized control, low latency and the protection we needed too.

“IP remote production makes it economically possible to provide professional coverage for sports that do not have a huge audience, which obviously benefits the viewers and also provides a viable business for us.”