No SDI? No Problem! Growing eSports Productions Over IP posted: 17/06/2017
by Ellen Camloh
When it comes to live streaming productions, local is the new global, and UK-based Digital Tree Media is no exception
We started off as a relatively small media company, serving schools and colleges with basic media requirements, says Digital Tree's CEO John Coles. We've grown to provide very large event-based productions, such as a mini-Olympics that took place in the greater Manchester region. At that time, with young athletes descending upon the city from all over the world to compete in a two-week long festival of sport, Digital Tree produced the event - which covered multiple competitions in different remote arenas - for viewers in the U.S., France, Russia, and Germany, among others.
We provided video workflows over LAN and WAN, and that was back in 2013 before anybody was really thinking about IP, says Coles. That is something that NewTek have been doing very well for years. We started using these networked workflows back when we had NewTek TriCaster 40, using AirSend (the predecessor to NDI, NewTek's encoding protocol for video over IP). The configuration was easy to do, and it made production simple.
In a matter of weeks, the company had transformed virtually from a local production company to an international online sports broadcaster.
Today, the company still produces local events, such as election coverage and municipal activities, from single-camera programs to large live productions. But its team members gravitate to solving the Olympic-like complexities of unpredictable, dramatic, multi-venue live video with a small crew.
Esport commentators provide play-by-play and analysis, meet-and-greets and on-camera interviews
A lot of the time, people come to us with problems that other companies have told them were impossible to solve, says Coles. We look at it and think, Okay, we know how we can solve 90% of it. That other 10% we'll sit down and figure out as well.' Increasingly, they're solving it with IP video.
Ahead of the Esport curve
You might say they've taken sports production over IP to the next level: the all-IP, all-remote, massively multi-player live competition that is Esports.
Esports has been a growing market for broadcasters for years, says Coles. You've got larger and larger festivals happening. A large gaming community that already streams. You look at Twitch, and the size of their audience is huge.
This is no exaggeration. According to Superdata Research, digital gaming in general now has one of the most valuable and highly engaged demographics, and Esport specifically is approaching a billion-dollar industry.
And according to ESPN's data analysis brand, FiveThirtyEight.com, tournaments such as The League of Legends Championship are drawing more viewers than Stanley Cup Finals, the Masters final round, the World Series, and even the NBA Finals.
Millions of gamers are playing (and watching). Broadcasters are taking notice. And Digital Tree Media has created an advantage: a built-in, highly engaged audience for the world's most popular online video game - Minecraft.
Looking out from the lounge, rows of 48 gaming workstations in the foreground await Minecraft players registering in the background
Digital Tree owns the second largest Minecraft server in the world. We have peaks of around 30,000 players on our Minecraft server, and about 300,000 unique players per day coming through the server, says Coles.
That made the company the natural choice to produce an April 2017 gaming event that combined the world of Esport with live in-venue production.
You want it when?
Multiplay - the organizers of Insomnia, the largest gaming festival in the UK - came to Coles and his team to help create exactly the kind of complex production Digital Tree Media specializes in.
The Minecraft Zone would be set up as a large networked stand in the NEC (Birmingham, UK's National Exhibition Centre), with 48 computer workstations. Festival-goers could drop into the stand and play Minecraft with other players in a competitive, team-based environment, while on-stand Esport commentators would provide running play-by-play and analysis. Influential gamers known for their YouTube presence would show up for meet-and-greets, and be hustled into the studio for on-camera interviews.
All of these on-screen and on-camera activities would be mixed into a centralized program, and sent to two different audiences. One mix would output the program to large IMAG displays throughout the stand to grab the attention of attendees and give them an up-close glimpse of the games, the interviews, and the stand.
A second mix would stream live via the Twitch social gaming video platform, to Digital Tree's CubeCraft community - whose members would have the opportunity to interact with people back at the event, via chat windows and Q&A to the celebrity gamers.
The challenge? How to plan a four-day live event that would capture live video from 48 computers and 4 remote-controlled PTZ cameras for two different audiences.
Oh, and one other detail: the event was taking place in just over three weeks.
The Minecraft Zone at Insomnia - the UK's largest gaming festival - is fully networked for tournament play
Connecting communities
Right away, it was obvious that connecting all the computer systems in the Minecraft Zone for live video would require new thinking.
Nobody we've talked to in the community has done a live Esport competition this size before, in such a short time, says Coles.
After all, this was not the controlled confines of a broadcast studio, nor the usual Esport tournament setup of a handful of competitors isolated on a stage - but four dozen Windows computers in the midst of a heavily trafficked pedestrian concourse, a
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...
No SDI? No Problem! Growing eSports Productions Over IP posted: 17/06/2017 
