ITV Sport reveals remote production behind Royal Ascot horse racing Editing, media management and graphics remoted out to operators' homes By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe
Tuesday, June 23, 2020 - 12:17
Print This Story
Two weekends ago ITV Sport resumed live horse racing with all presenters at home and a remote production in place for races from Lingfield, Newcastle and Newmarket. Last week brought the high-profile Royal Ascot meeting with lead presenters Ed Chamberlin, Francesca Cumani and Jason Weaver safely distancing back in the paddock and other colleagues presenting from zones around the racecourse.
The ITV Sport production team has left no stone unturned to present the best possible show in the safest environment, and there can be no better illustration of how much coronavirus has changed the landscape than the fact that this was the first year the Queen did not attend the annual Royal Ascot meeting in her 68-year reign.
Challenged with connecting a distributed presenting team and production crew across ten locations two weekends ago, facilities partner NEP made use of low latency encoding technology and bonded networking solutions to deliver a secure platform capable of real time communication with robust and reliable contribution facilities.
However the production hub, two weeks ago and last week, was the Equinox truck, built for the
ITV Racing presenter Olie Bell at his home studio for the first weekend of racing, from Lingfield, Newcastle and Newmarket
bespoke needs of ITV's horse racing coverage. Based at Royal Ascot throughout, Equinox provided the firepower to drive the first weekend's distributed remote production, and of course did not need to be de-rigged following that groundbreaking first weekend of live racing before being pressed back into action for the Royal Ascot OB.
To understand the complexity of the new workflows and production operations involved in delivering live horse racing over the past two weeks, SVG Europe sat down with Daragh Bass, NEP UK, head of sales; Jon Harris, NEP UK, technical projects manager, Horse Racing; Rob Oldham, ITV Sport, technical manager; and Roger Pearce, ITV Sport, technical director.
For the first weekend we had to look at the constraints of the racing venues, said Pearce. Our thinking was around creating a hub a safe hub. That would be the place we actually present from, and it would have the traditional connectivity of a main and a backup feed out to ITV Presentation.
We would try to hook on remote elements from there, connected via the internet. The big problem is the internet, and whatever you put on there you need to back up or be prepared to lose.
That was our planning, said Pearce. We went through every little element and worked out how to back it up. We wanted to be able to keep that core working so if we lost the director, editor and PA via the internet we had someone at the hub who could take over.
Equinox is our established set-up for horse racing coverage, said Harris. When we put this proposal and plan together we didn't know what was in front of us, other than the fact that Royal Ascot was going to happen in the middle of June, more than likely behind closed doors. We very much wanted to get our foot in the compound here and get this hubbed infrastructure' in place.
The timelines fell into place in that we could introduce a remote hub approach for the first weekend's racing, while at the same time rigging Royal Ascot here with all the cameras. And it has now been deemed appropriate, we can now bring the presentation team to Ascot and have them on site.
The schedule for horse racing doesn't contain much slack, said Harris. There are 94 programmes a year, so you're never more than five days away from your next OB.
We're quite adjusted to the fact that we're going from one event to another - and efficiency is the key to all of this. A working environment with a hub approach was the best option really, rather than trying to build it from the ground up.
Three timing planes in place for contribution and production
For the technical approach we took some inspiration from the world of esports, said Bass. Within an esports environment the players need to compete real time, and latency is critical. But you still have to broadcast that.
So the original concept was that we could backhaul each presenter to a hub, create a multiviewer, and send them a return feed. But even on the best low latency encoding you're still talking - ballpark one second in each direction plus a little bit of processing.
We knew we needed to do something different. We set up a couple of different timing planes.
Ed Chamberlin, ITV Racing presenter, at home for the return of racing
To ensure real time we used cloud mixing and cloud video conferencing tools, and that basically enabled all the talent to communicate in real time with visual cues, nods and thumbs up - and they had open talkback into each other's ears to create mix-minus feeds. That was challenging enough in itself, creating all the different audio feeds - Jon and the team in the truck did a fantastic job QC-ing and bringing it all together, said Bass.
And then at the next level we took discrete feeds of all of the individual cameras and microphones and took them to the truck. So the hub probably operates on a slightly different timing plane of about a second behind the real time comms, but it has proven not to be an issue because as long as the talent can communicate in real time in their world and get fed the cues, contributed sources and VTs from the truck, we can create this discrete mix out of the truck and produce it.
And there's a third timing plane to factor in. You've had the contribution side up to now, but the production side is also something of a feat of e
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...
22/07/2026
RT REPORTS NET SURPLUS OF 22.5 MILLION IN 2025...
22/07/2026
In the Opinion of the Censor airs Monday 27 July at 9.35pm on RT One and RT Player
In the Opinion of the Censor looks at how films for theatrical release wer...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
New research involving a cross-section of Mongolias independent media landscape finds enthusiasm for AI as a tool to improve efficiency, sustainability and resi...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
ITV Sport reveals remote production behind Royal Ascot horse racing Editing, media management and graphics remoted out to operators' homes By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe 
