Video Production In The Cloud Removes The Limits

01/10/2020

Video Production In The Cloud Removes The LimitsBy Paul Shen, TVU Networks

September 30th, 2020

View Related Products

Remote television production is in the midst of an evolution that will fundamentally change the way sports, entertainment and other live televised spectacles, such as parades, are produced.

Rather than relying on 53-foot-long trailers outfitted to mimic all of the audio, video and graphics capabilities available in a studio, productions increasingly are relying on the cloud -where there's a theoretically unlimited number of CPUs, GPUs and storage-to run virtualized versions of the real-world hardware devices available in production vehicles.

A cursory look at the nexus of technology and business reveals the why behind this transition.

The Why Of Cloud Remote Production

Consider that TV networks, professional sports leagues, and collegiate athletic associations typically rely on mobile facilities companies with a fleet of production trailers and trucks to roll their mobile production vehicles to a sports or entertainment venue for event coverage.

Those mobile facilities are designed with a variety of capabilities to meet the typical requirements of productions of different sizes-big trailers for big events and smaller trucks for those that are smaller. Even so, it's often the case that certain capabilities go left untouched and thus unbilled because there's no need for them to produce a given event. The opposite is true as well. Often a sporting or entertainment event requires so much production capability that multiple vehicles are booked.

A common shorthand that sums up the scale of live remote production relates to how many cameras are required. For smaller sports, such as an NCAA Division II volleyball tournament, there may be only a couple to a half dozen cameras. An NFL game on the other hand, might require 30-plus cameras, and the biggest sporting events might call for 100 or more.

Setting the cameras and cabling aside, there's a whole lot of technology and associated costs that go into supporting those cameras in a mobile production vehicle-everything from camera control units and routing and production switchers to slow motion instant replay servers and multiviewers.

Transitioning all of that as virtualized equivalents in the cloud not only dramatically reduces how much money must be spent on the cost of physical production technology, but it also shifts spending from a CapEx to an OpEx model and makes it easier and less expensive to dedicated the precise amount of production capability needed for a given event.

Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Sources

The interesting thing about shifting to the cloud is that unlike a physical production switcher with a finite number of inputs, M/E busses and outputs, there is an unlimited amount of bandwidth in the cloud, making it possible to accommodate an unlimited number of camera and other video sources.

Further, it's not even necessary to have all of these sources in the same server. Our company, TVU Networks, has developed cloud-based micro-services for input and output of sources that make it possible to separate sources to different physical machines in the cloud.

As a result, camera and other video sources can be dispersed to any number of cloud servers, and the technical director responsible for switching a show is none the wiser because what server and what memory is being used is irrelevant to the task at hand.

Over time, broadcasters and others who hold the TV rights to live sports and entertainment will begin to see they sacrifice nothing from a production sizzle point of view and gain enormous economic and business benefits by leveraging the cloud for remote production.

LINK:	https://www.tvunetworks.com/story/video-production-in-the-cloud-remove...
	See more stories from tvu

North America Stories

17/07/2026

Foundry Unlocks Professional-Grade AI for VFX with Gripta...

Creative software developer Foundry today announced Griptape Enterprise, a new tier of the Griptape AI workflow orchestration platform, extended to meet the str...

17/07/2026

Foundry Releases SmartRoto for Nuke

Creative software developer Foundry today announced the availability of SmartRoto, a new AI-powered plugin upgrade for Nuke, NukeX, Nuke Studio, and Nuke Indie ...

17/07/2026

The Final Release of Blackmagic Fairlight Live is Now Available!

The Final Release of Blackmagic Fairlight Live is Now Available! Brie Clayton July 16, 2026 0 Comments Fairlight Live is a new audio mixer designed fo...

17/07/2026

Leveraging All of Entertainment's IP

Leveraging All of Entertainment's IP Andy Marken July 16, 2026 0 Comments Nobody ever wins the games. Period. There are survivors. There\s no win...

16/07/2026

SVG Students To Watch: Kaden Sherman, Albany State University

This recent graduate and Georgia native has turned an early fascination with live production into a growing passion for camera work In the live-sports-video in...

16/07/2026

TNDV Marks First Year of Aspiration 35 Cinematic Production Truck

TNDV is marking the first anniversary of Aspiration 35, a mobile production truck built around ARRI Alexa 35 Live camera systems. Over its first year, the truck...

16/07/2026

ATSC Releases First Major Revision to A/85 Audio Loudness Recommended Practice Since 2013

ATSC has completed a major revision to its A/85 Recommended Practice: Techniques...

16/07/2026

FloSports Named Exclusive Global Media Partner for 2026 CrossFit Games

FloSports has announced an exclusive global media partnership with CrossFit for the 2026 CrossFit Games, presented by Air National Guard, beginning July 21 in S...

16/07/2026

Sennheiser Releases Spectera Firmware 1.4 and Command Button

Sennheiser has released firmware version 1.4 for its Spectera wireless system and announced the Spectera Command Button (Cat. No. 701014). The update adds comma...

16/07/2026

ESPN and Southwestern Athletic Conference Announce Multi-Year Media Rights Agreement Through 2030-31

ESPN and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) have announced a multi-year...

16/07/2026

Audio-Technica Releases 20 Series Control Application for Elgato Stream Deck

Audio-Technica has announced the 20 Series Control Application, a Stream Deck plug-in for compatible Audio-Technica USB microphones. The application is compatib...

16/07/2026

SSL Live L550 Plus Consoles Power Audio Production for The Voice France Season 15

The fifteenth season of The Voice - La plus belle voix on TF1 used four Solid St...

16/07/2026

Gray Media and Atlanta Hawks Announce Georgia-Wide Broadcast Partnership for 2026-27 NBA Season

Gray Media and the Atlanta Hawks have announced a broadcast partnership that wil...

16/07/2026

SVG Sit-Down: Quarterback Showrunner Joe Zucco on Cinematography, Building Trust, Carrying On the NFL Films Legacy

Season 3 of Netflix's docuseries, which dropped this week, follows Jayden Da...

16/07/2026

Texas Rangers Switch Direct-to-Consumer Streaming Partner to BZZR

The Texas Rangers and Rangers Sports Network presented by Progressive (RSN) have announced BZZR as the new direct-to-consumer distributor for Rangers game broad...

16/07/2026

FIFA World Cup 2026: BBC Sport on Moving Across the Pond to Bring the Atmosphere of the Final Matches to Fans

With England's FIFA World Cup 2026 team getting ready to fly home after losi...

16/07/2026

With 36 Unilateral Cameras, NBC Sports Shapes 154th Open Championship Coverage for U.S. Viewers

In a return to Royal Birkdale, the team enjoys partnering with ETP and Gravity M...

16/07/2026

Altitude Sports & Entertainment's Tim De Lay on New SkyCam Digital Feed, Upgraded Studio Space

Along with a new studio at Ball Arena, the Colorado-based RSN is working with XR...

16/07/2026

FIFA World Cup 2026: Inside ORF's Austria-Based Production to Bring All the Emotions of the Tournament to Fans

Austria was back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and the team d...

16/07/2026

Inside Gravity Media's Effort To Power the 154th Open Championship Production

With 42 RF cameras and high-power radio mics deployed, the spectrum environment ...

16/07/2026

The Gauge: Poland | June 2026

June brought stabilization to the television market. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day in front of their TV screens exactly the same as i...

16/07/2026

New studio monitoring leads Glensound's 60th year line-up...

Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...

16/07/2026

Complete spectrum of innovation from British exhibitors a...

33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...

16/07/2026

Hitomi Broadcast to showcase HDR colour verification and...

Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...