How Slow TV' watching moose migrate is accelerating live cloud workflows at SVT By Adrian Pennington
Monday, June 10, 2024 - 08:00
Print This Story
Credit: Den stora lgvandringen/SVT
The slow meandering trek of herds of moose doesn't have much in common with the turbocharged power, noise and control of rally cars but right now in Sweden, they are virtually joined at the hip.
Swedish broadcaster SVT's month-long round-the-clock live broadcast of The Great Moose Migration (Den stora lgvandringen) was the latest test of an organisation-wide digital transformation project that will soon encompass the next leg of the World Rally Championship (WRC).
It's a slightly insane project, says Dennis Buhr, SVT head of production development, chatting with SVG Europe about the remote production initiated for this year's Great Moose Migration. It's not that common that your show is 500 hours long.
About the Moose Migration
Every spring, for thousands of years, Sweden's population of moose (or European Elk) in V sternorrland in the north of Sweden migrates across the same tracks in the forest to get to greener pastures. Since 2019, SVT has live-streamed the action' over several weeks.
This great moose migration' has proved hugely popular with the public ever since with viewers rising from a million in 2019 to about nine million this year on SVT Play alongside more than 300,000 chat interactions an increase of 30% on 2023.
The show has also been broadcast live on Twitch reaching nearly 15 million views around the world. Men aged 16-25 seemed to enjoy the respite from hardcore gaming.
Den stora lgvandringen is a slightly insane project. It's not that common that your show is 500 hours long.
The livestream is now a national springtime phenomenon and a classic example of Slow TV' which this year is also being aired on Finland's YLE and RTL in Germany.
It's always been a huge technical struggle to get this to work in a forest with a wild river and at time of year that turns from winter into spring with huge ice melts, says Buhr.
SVT lays thousands of metres of cable across the forest area to connect 30 camouflaged cameras and 28 mics. In the past, these feeds were all sent to a remote production gallery built on site.
This year the Moose Migration has gone truly remote.
New cloud-based workflow
First and foremost we decided to keep all our production staff inside our TV building in Ume , says Buhr. Immediately that cuts down the costs of having staff on site for a month.
In this new setup, the cameras (a mix of Sony PTZ during the day and Axion surveillance cameras at night) and mics are converted from SDI to IP by VideoXLink and transported as H.264 streams over the internet to SVT's hub at Ume , a 3-hour and 250km drive away.
Two cameras in this year's production were positioned next to a wild bear spot. Unable to run either power or fibre to that location they used solar power and a Starlink satellite internet connection.
At Ume the rest of the IP streams are captured into Agile Live, a software-based system jointly developed over a number of years by SVT and Agile Content. Image mixing and overlay graphics are performed by operators in Ume with rendering done on-prem in Stockholm 650km away.
The technical cloud workflow of this is not particularly difficult, says Buhr. The actual work is the shift in mindset we have gone through at SVT. We have had to rethink production.
He elaborates, You can't stream high-res images everywhere as you are used to. You have to think about who needs to see what, when, and in what quality. You need to understand and communicate the advantages of it rather than comparing this workflow to how it used to be done.
This year's production has brought together SVT broadcast engineering with its IT teams. Many, it seems, had never met before, yet here they are working to deliver the production together.
All of a sudden you have meetings and you see people inside the organisation you do not regularly see. They might be responsible for computer services in whole other areas of the business. They are experts in networks, computer hosting and IT security. Everyone gathered to make a TV show. That was a new thing for me - and for everyone.
I've been doing broadcast for 22 years and this is the first time I've seen computer guys getting a credit on the show. It made me extremely happy.
The culture clash between IT and broadcast worlds that is often mentioned as a management nightmare didn't materialise. Or, if it did, everyone treated each other professionally and understood the overall mission.
We have had our discussions shall we say, but it has not been a hassle more of a learning curve, says Buhr. Early on we asked for a feature from the network department and gave them four days' notice. They said, You can't have this short a time span.' But when you work in live TV with the red light about to flash, four minutes is a long time, let alone four hours. That was one cultural difference but people have genuinely been getting on very well and understand it is a joint venture.
Having previously trialled the arrangement on a local sports production, the 2024 Great Moose Migration is by far SVT's biggest proof of concept to date of its transformation project Next Generation Online (NEO).
NEO is an organisation-wide glass-to-glass approach to making production and distribution under the same roof. It is aimed to be 100% software, based on COTS servers and standard IT using the internet.
It's a huge scope but we started early, in late 2018, and now we are live with a working product.
The same set-up will be used by SVT to produce the ERC Bauhaus Royal Rally, part of the WRC calendar, on June 13-15 at several different loc
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
07/05/2026
Journalists reporting on Sudan are working in one of the most complex and fast-m...
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Seit dem Start im Jahr 2023 hat DJ (Beta) das personalisierte H rerlebnis von 94...
07/05/2026
Da quando stata presentata nel 2023, DJ (beta) ha aiutato a definire un'esperienza d'ascolto pi personalizzata per 94 milioni di utenti Spotify Premi...
07/05/2026
Since launching in 2023, DJ (beta) has helped shape a more personalized listenin...
07/05/2026
Desde o lan amento em 2023, o DJ (beta) j ajudou a deixar a experi ncia de ouvi...
07/05/2026
From our earliest days, Spotify has been built on a simple principle: Great audio should be easy to reach. It's what's driven us to expand from music to...
07/05/2026
Asian and Pacific Islander artists continue to shape the global soundscape, pushing creative boundaries and connecting with fans worldwide. This Asian & Pacific...
07/05/2026
Company announce long-requested choir instrument
In the latest expansion of their Symphonic Elements series, UJAM have introduced an all-new vocal instrumen...
07/05/2026
Modular-inspired sound generation with digital control
Buchla have introduced Ziggy, a new compact synthesizer built around the company's complex oscill...
07/05/2026
Combines analogue voices with digital synthesis and sequencing
Polyend have announced Drums, a new hybrid analogue and digital drum machine that combines sy...
07/05/2026
Control surface now officially supports four DAWs
When Nektar launched the Panorama CS12 control surface, it worked exclusively with Apple's Logic Pro, ...
07/05/2026
In the first quarter 2026, SGL Carbon generated consolidated sales of 184.5 million, which was 49.8 million, or 21.3%, lower than in the prior year (Q1 2025: ...
07/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Greenerwave achieve precise and fast ESA antenna characteriz...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
How Slow TV' watching moose migrate is accelerating live cloud workflows at SVT By Adrian Pennington 
