Wild Touchs first live broadcast from Antarctica via Dual BGAN HDR & Streambox Cloud posted: 09/03/2016
Luc Jacquet & Wild Touch
Luc Jacquet is an Academy Award Winner and French wildlife film director known for his 2005 documentary, March of the Penguins. In 2010 he founded Wild Touch, a non-profit organization aiming to showcase the fundamental importance of protecting the planet and its resources.
Wild Touch Expedition to Antarctica
Wild Touch decided to launch a 45-day expedition to Antarctica to showcase the beauty and fragility of the emperor penguin, the ambassador of Antarctica, while raising awareness about the climate changes affecting this unique ecosystem. Wild Touch organized various activities designed to alert the community about the current situation in Antarctica and engage viewers in the fight against the climate change. Wild Touch organized various activities, around the COP21 conferences, designed to alert the community about the current situation in Antarctica and engage viewers in the fight against the climate change.
Challenge Wild Touch approached E-SAT to provide reliable solutions that could bring satellite connectivity for the Expeditors Team. The Expeditors wanted to communicate to viewers exactly what they were seeing and experiencing, to share the wildlife pictures and videos with people worldwide and more precisely, have an impact on the COP21 conferences.
Due to the context, E-SAT suggested to use Cobham Explorer 710, a robust and reliable modem. The Explorer 710 offers the possibilities to separate the antenna from the transceiver and can be mounted on an external pole mount, up to 100 meters away with the optional antenna cable. This setup is ideal in the context of Antarctica due to the very low temperatures. Furthermore, Explorer 710 is an ultra-portable and easy to use satellite terminal which includes features such as High Data Rate, bonding, Wi-Fi and high-speed.
This service offered a good capacity at an affordable price. Later in 2015, the Wild Touch Team decided that they would like to achieve live broadcasts as well. Unfortunately, Inmarsat BGAN Link is not compatible with Streaming IP which is compulsory for doing Live. The offer moved forward towards an Inmarsat BGAN HDR service.
Live Streaming from Antarctica
The question of a dedicated solution to realize the live broadcast was asked. Streambox was offered as the ideal tool to answer this need, with both software and hardware options. Wild Touch chose the software encoders for practicality, as no additional equipment was needed and Streambox Hybrid Software Encoder could run on a laptop the team was already using for communications.
Streambox proved high-quality performance with BGAN terminals provides unrivalled video compression and quality at low data rates. To ensure a high video quality with a low delay, the connection bitrates were doubled (900kbps instead of 450kbps for one Explorer 710) by bonding two BGANs together. As the tests of the Streambox Hybrid Software encoder with the dual BGAN HDR systems were very successful, the decision to increase the amount of live broadcasts was made.
Before going to Antarctica, several tests had been made at E-SATs office with the Wild Touch technical team. It consisted on computers settings, using BGANs, validate quality control tests and optimizing transmission settings over Streambox software. Thanks to these preparations, the team in Antarctica had everything ready when needed.
There was a risk but thanks to the teams efforts, Wild Touch succeeded in broadcasting Live from Antarctica.
Solution To meet the projects requirements, Wild Touch was well-equipped for satellite communications:
3 Cobham Explorer 710
3 Inmarsat BGAN LINK 30GB
2 Inmarsat Asymmetrical BGAN Full HDR
In the end, Wild Touch took 5 SIM cards and 3 Explorer 710 units. One Explorer (with a BGAN Link 30 GB SIM card) was used by the Team and stayed in the local technical room, the second Explorer 710 was a travelling one, equipped with a Full HDR SIM card. The latter was to ensure the Live broadcast and allow the Team to permute the 3 other SIM cards.
We were extremely pleased to see the strength, reliability and broadcast quality of our bonded BGAN HDR service demonstrated during this live broadcast from Antarctica - the first ever from the region to use the service. Pairing our services with the Streambox software encoder makes a powerful end-to-end broadcasting solution thats robust enough to perform well even in the most remote and challenging of environments -
Daniel Cooper, Head of Media, Inmarsat Enterprise
In regards to broadcast solutions, two Streambox Hybrid Software encoders running on OSX MacBooks that the Team took to the expedition - one for travelling and another as a backup solution, if needed. Without a dual BGAN HDR and Streambox Technology, the live broadcasts wouldnt be possible at all, as the Team was located in a very low connectivity area.
Wild Touch was also able to pass by locked connections and avoid other technical challenges during this project. Redirecting the transmission through the Streambox Cloud to the Media Player Pro software decoder, allowed to output HDMI/SDI in closed networks. Streambox Cloud Service is a reliable cloud-based live video management solution that delivers the highest-quality and low latency video over any public or private IP network. Its easy routing features allowed to simplify the workflow and achieve an exceptional video quality for the conditions that were faced.
The Expedition and Social Media
Wild Touch and its partners have also been highly active on social media through the hashtag #RejoinsLaColonie to engage people worldwide to support their fight against climate changes. This social engagement enabled people from all over the world to see images of Antarcticas wildlife d
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Wild Touchs first live broadcast from Antarctica via Dual BGAN HDR & Streambox Cloud posted: 09/03/2016 
