Sports Venue Production Summit: Tech Vendors Address Signal Distribution Fiber offers both challenges, benefits; at-home production is a significant trend By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Friday, March 30, 2018 - 9:52 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
As sports venues invest in video-display technology and the top tools to capture content, so too must they invest in the infrastructure to get video signals from Point A to Point B and beyond. At the SVG Sports Venue Production Summit at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta earlier this month, a panel of technology vendors addressed the greatest challenges and latest developments in signal distribution - both within the stadium and from the truck dock to the broadcast center.
When It Comes to Fiber, No Two Stadiums Are the Same
As remote productions at stadium rely more and more on fiber, venues are increasingly asked to implement new fiber infrastructure to support them. Although many recently built or renovated venues boast significant fiber installations, the majority of stadiums do not, forcing broadcasters and remote-facilities providers to pull significantly more fiber strands for individual shows.
The Latest in Venue Signal Transmission and Distribution panel: (from left) Aspera's Mike Flathers, Bexel's Scott Nardelli, and Riedel Communications' Rick Seegull
One of the biggest challenges coming into a venue is fiber [infrastructure], said Rick Seegull, manager, system consulting, Riedel Communications. We try to move as many signals today over fiber as possible, and the biggest thing is figuring out what type of fiber topology we are dealing with when we walk into a venue. Is it a new venue? Are they able to pull new fibers? What do we have to deal with in term of existing fiber topology?
Sharing the Fiber Wealth With Broadcasters Has Its Pros, Cons
As the latest sports venues become broadcast centers themselves with comprehensive IPTV and video-distribution capabilities, broadcasters are looking for new ways to utilize their infrastructure to benefit both parties. However, when the needs of remote productions are built into a new stadium, the venue also risks having to troubleshoot issues by opening up its production ecosystem to broadcasters and potentially having to troubleshoot signal-distribution issues down the road.
I think, in the newer facilities, what has become an interesting opportunity is to look at how you share pathways and fiber capacity through all of the different aspects that are running in a venue - whether it's IPTV, broadcast, ENG, radio, POS systems, security systems, or league-owned systems, said Scott Nardelli, VP/GM, Bexel ESS. You have to build that diversity into your facility to be able to handle those things, and I think [fiber] gives you a great opportunity to do that. But you have to balance that with [the need for] discrete end-to-end signals [to prevent] glitches introduced by air gaps and things like that.
For New Venues, the IP Future Is Now, But Challenges Remain
Potential signal-distribution glitches will only become more of a concern as venues move toward an IP infrastructure that, instead of I/O simplicity, offers an ultra-complex decentralized network of IP addresses.
The Latest in Venue Signal Transmission and Distribution panel included input from LiveU's Dave Belding.
I think one of the big challenges with everything moving to IP is the whole plethora of IP-based devices that we have and the ability to register those, discover those, and manage those, opined Mike Flathers, CTO, Aspera (an IBM Company). [That will] start to become a bit unwieldy, especially as you start looking at some of those devices' actually being connected to the outside world as well.
He stressed the importance of interoperability and the need for standards to allow that interoperability as the industry heads into this great IP frontier.
Standards are sorely needed for these types of things, he explained, and there are some things coming up within both SMPTE and others to allow these devices to work together. It's not just good enough for us to have a single vendor that provides everything; we've got to be able to interoperate with each other. I think there are some ways, with deep-packet-inspection technologies, to actually discover these devices as they are coming online and see what kind of streams they're producing and then also to have devices communicating both inside the venue and outside the venue.
The Growth of At-Home Production and Its Promise
The rise of the at-home production model has arguably been the most significant trend in live sports production over the past five years. Many broadcasters and live-streaming outlets are looking to cut costs while maintaining production quality by transmitting signals to their central control room rather than deploying a full truck and crew onsite. These at-home workflows have typically required extensive fiber or satellite connectivity, but the rise of IP transmission offers new opportunities for the approach - especially at venues with limited connectivity, such as golf courses.
The University of Oklahoma has done two golf tournaments with eight camera operators and eight [LiveU bonded-cellular] backpacks on the golf course, noted Dave Belding, sales director, sports, LiveU. Everything else was done at the SoonerVision [on-campus control room]. Has anyone done a golf tournament without running a single cable? That's exactly what they're doing, which is the beauty of it.
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...
Sports Venue Production Summit: Tech Vendors Address Signal Distribution Fiber offers both challenges, benefits; at-home production is a significant trend By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
