NAB 2019 SportsTechBuzz in Review: North Hall, Outdoor Exhibits, and More News
The SVG editorial team was out in full force at last week’s NAB Show, covering the biggest sports-technology news and delivering daily SportsTechBuzz at NAB 2019 roundups. Here is a look at the NAB 2019 SportsTechBuzz from North Hall.
In this post, check out NAB 2019 news from Live CGI, Axon Digital Design, Evertz, Mobile TV Group, Shoflo, G&D North America, Arista Networks, Mobile TV Group, news from the annual the DTV Audio Group meeting, and more.
Live CGI’s [L-R] Keisha Howard, Jessica Tolliver, Mark Rowley, and August Wasilowski
Mark Rowley, CEO and co-founder of Live CGI (Booth N1334), said eSports production professionals looking for a cost-effective solution to the challenge of building studio shows and programming around eSports content will want to check out the new Live CGI Newsroom. “It takes the power of Sportscenter into a laptop as [all of the on-air talent] are CGI avatars,” he explained. “Why build out a streaming studio with switchers and other equipment when you can go all software? Use avatars because eSports is already a video game so you can have video over the shoulder of the avatar, topic bars like on a newscast, drop down virtual monitors, and fly around the studio.” The Quinstream video player requires flesh-and-blood talent to wear a sensor and microphone and then a camera captures their movements, which are then used to power the avatar.
At NAB Axon Digital Design (Booth N2824) has introduced the Neuron Network Attached Processor (NAP). Developed to address the needs of complex IP and hybrid environments, this signal processing platform supports 200Gbps and 64 channels or 16 UHD channels in a single rack unit. Whether deployed as ‘modular glue’ in a pure native IP infrastructure or to bridge legacy SDI technology into an IP environment, Neuron’s FGPA-based processing power provides guaranteed bandwidth performance to deliver complex Ultra HD and 8K productions.
Among a long list of announcements, Evertz Microsystems (Booth N1503) revealed that it is moving into the cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) market with the launch of Evertz iO, a collection of on-demand and pay-as-you-go cloud native services for broadcasting and media. Making use of a server-less architecture, the available tools will include browse generation, technical metadata generation, content moderation, audio transcription, scene detection and text detection. Another announcement of interest for sports broadcasters is Bravo, a new collaborative production platform that works with DreamCatcher to allow users to easily scale their sports production capabilities up and down.
On the customer sales front, Evertz Microsystems announced the purchase and deployment of its DC-ONE replay system and production suite by TVT Media in Amsterdam and revealed that UK’s RaceTech, the technical and production services provider for the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), is using the DreamCatcher platform for race course coverage and stewards review.
Shoflo (Booth N3924) arrived at its fourth NAB Show with a focus on eSports. “We’ve got a lot of eSports teams that are already using our software around the globe,” said Founder and CEO Stephen Bowles. “We’ve been really dialing in the product around their workflows.” In addition, Shoflo is showing off the integration of teleprompting capabilities within its production rundown software, enabling producers to manage and make adjustments to their rundown and scripts on one platform, keeping both in sync. Following its acquisition of TSE ScriptPro last year, Shoflo invites TSE’s clients that are now part of the Shoflo family to stop by.
After demoing the prototype of its KVM-over-IP matrix switching system at last year’s NAB Show, G&D North America (Booth N3424) is now showing the final, shipping product on its booth. The system enables highly scalable and flexible distributed switching of computer signals via standard IP-based networks and over existing network infrastructures, and offers broadcasters cross-system, platform-independent operation and extensive interoperability. The KVM-over-IP extends real 4K over IP and ensures pixel-perfect video transmission for DisplayPort 1.2 signals for resolutions up to 3840 x 2160 @ 60Hz. In addition, G&D is showing its the DP1.2-VisionXG KVM extender, which provides transmission of high-resolution, 4K and 8K video signals at 60Hz, uncompressed and latency-free.
Arista Networks (Booth N3008) has announced that CBC and NEP Australia were just two recent clients to benefit from its expertise in production applications. The company designs and sells multilayer network switches to deliver software-defined networking solutions for large datacenter, cloud computing, high performance computing and high frequency trading environments. Robert Welch, Technical Solutions Architect, said that, “We want to be as reliable as the network and to build solutions with our many partners”. The company is showcasing its full range of switches in a range of booth demos that includes: high speed production control, open standards network control, virtual rack, monitor/manage, post production and over the top (OTT) streaming, broadcast partners and a AIMS virtual rack interoperability demonstration.
OUTDOOR/MOBILE MEDIA
Mobile TV Group’s new 45 Flex is an end-to-end IP truck.
Mobile TV Group has rolled out its latest truck, the 45 Flex, at Gerling and Associates’ NAB 2019 stand (Booth OE2000), marking the first-ever, “end-to-end native IP mobile unit,” according to MTVG President Philip Garvin. The entire truck is fully ST-2110 integrated, including the Grass Valley Kayenne K-Frame X switcher, Grass Valley LDX 86 and LDX 82 cameras (with IP XCU’s), Evertz EXE-VSR router and Magnum control systems (100GB port capability), EVS XT VIA replay servers, Evertz multiviewer, Calrec Artemis audio console, and Leader LV7600 IP waveform/vector rasterizer.
DTV AUDIO GROUP MEETING
Heard around the room at the DTV Audio Group meeting on the Sunday of NAB. SVG asked: What products are you showing new here, and what are your expectations for the NAB Show 2019 and the industry?
Chris Fichera, VP/US Sales for Calrec distributor Group One: “We’ve got three new virtual products this year, the RP-1, VP-2 and Type-R. All are IP based and designed to help us expand our customer base into new smaller broadcast markets.”
Paul Johnson, CEO of Q5X: “We’re showing two new receivers tomorrow, the QR-M3 mobile receiver and the QR-3200 dual-channel rackmount receiver, both operating between 470MHz and 700MHz, so they cover the entire spectrum of our receivers. This year, we’re expecting to see increased use of our Player Mic, and in general more athletes wired for sound on the field, everywhere. We’ve been getting more and more input about that from around the world.”
Jackie Green, President and CEO Alteros: This year our new product is the GTX FX8 direct-to-fiber breakout box, which mates with our GTX 3224F series wireless. Since last year, we’ve been seeing a shift in how audio is being used to create and maintain a more authentic experience for audiences, and how sports is becoming more and more of an entertainment type of experience. We see our mission as providing creative wireless tools that help make that happen, but tools that free you to be creative by minimizing operational complexity.”
Karl Malone, Director of Sound Design, NBC Olympics: “At this show we’re expecting to see how far immersive tools from manufacturers have come for immersive mixing and QC. Things are going quickly with Atmos considering it’s still early days. Also, we’ll be looking at more IP-based tools that allow us to do our jobs more efficiently and effectively.”
OTHER NEWS
Annual global sports championship SailGP has stated that it used an ambitious remote production strategyfor delivery of the world feed at its world premiere event in Sydney in February this year. The nature of the new sport, featuring supercharged F50 catamarans engineered for intense racing at electrifying speeds, meant that capturing the world’s fastest race boats and the athletes piloting them was going to be challenging, and required an innovative solution. SailGP worked with Whisper Films to create the world feed, which used drones and patented LiveLineFx technology to deliver impactful on-screen graphics, as well as information derived from a total of 1,200 sensors placed on the boats and athletes.
iRacing, a premier motorsports racing simulation company for eSports, is using Limelight Networks’ content delivery network (CDN) to accelerate large software updates delivered worldwide. Members of iRacing, which organises, hosts and officiates races on virtual tracks all around the world, update their software for the latest track and car information at the start of each 12 week racing season. Software updates range from 4GB to 5GB for existing players and up to 30GB for new members, however customers had complained of inconsistent download performance. To solve this issue, iRacing implemented Limelight’s CDN to improve performance and ensure all quarterly updates run smoothly. In addition, Limelight’s peering relationships with major global ISPs ensure that regardless of where players are located or how they connect to the internet, they have the fastest download possible.
Red Bee Media has reached record low latency on its live over the top (OTT) feed during NAB 2019, reaching as low as 3.5 seconds, glass to glass which is faster than traditional broadcasting feeds. On the second day of NAB Show 2019, Red Bee Media managed to reach a record low latency on its live OTT feed. Having showcased latency at around 10 seconds on Monday at NAB, the OTT team brought it down to as low as 3.5 seconds on Tuesday morning, 8 April. The feed is created with a live camera transmitting from the NAB trade show floor to its European cloud via the open internet, exploiting the open standard SRT transport protocol. The Red Bee Media Channel Store then processes the live signal for distribution and pushes back to origin and across the content delivery network (CDN) back to Las Vegas utilizing the open standard Chunked CMAF. Red Bee Media is showcasing its managed OTT offering on booth SU1620 at NAB 2019.
Qvest Media is developing and implementing a new media production system for Germany-based Deutsche Welle. Qvest Media is designing the production workflow based on a scalable and modular cloud-native architecture and infrastructure. The broadcaster’s new technology strategy is using the collaborative use of aggregated and produced content for efficient multi-platform distribution. ‘Online first’ marks a change in strategy at Deutsche Welle and the broadcaster is planning to align its multi-lingual, international portfolio of programmes and news more closely with online and in particular social media channels in future. The project to set up a cross-site production infrastructure is being carried out by the Qvest Media team in close cooperation with the broadcaster’s dedicated project team over the next two years using agile methods.