Live from Paris: World-leading remote production for Riot Games' League of Legends Finals By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe
Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 17:04
Print This Story
The Finals of Riot Games' 2019 League of Legends World Championship were held on Sunday (10 November) at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris, with the winning Chinese FunPlus Phoenix team lifting the Summoner's Cup as 2019 World Champions and taking home more than US $2 million in prize money.
Riot Games chief executive Nicolo Laurent described the Finals as the biggest event in the history of esports, with an estimated 100 million people watching around the world.
The 2019 League of Legends World Championship is the ninth year for the tournament, arising from the competitive multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game developed by Riot Games. The Championship was held in Berlin, Madrid and Paris, with 24 teams from 13 regions competing for the tournament, having qualified from regionals circuits in China, Europe, North America, South Korea and South East Asia. More than 15,000 esports fans packed into the AccorHotels Arena to see the Finals match live last Sunday.
Technical complexity for the Finals is ramped up each year by the demands of the in-venue Opening Ceremony. In 2017 Riot Games deployed a virtual dragon flying through Beijing National Stadium.
LA is handling the World Feed and it is then given to our partners to add their own graphics and voice it themselves in their own language. Our show is streamed live in 19 different languages and we have over 40 distribution partners.
Last year AR was factored into the Opening Ceremony at Incheon Munhak Stadium in South Korea, allowing in-game band K/DA to be virtually inserted onstage into the opening musical performance alongside Madison Beer, Miyeon and Soyeon of (G)I-DLE, and Jaira Burns.
This year's Opening Ceremony featured hip-hop collective True Damage, along with League of Legends characters Qiyana, Akali, Senna, Ekko and Yasuo. The show featured four Holonets from Kaleida, giant hanging fine metal meshes that are highly reflective and also see-through giving the effect of being a hologram.
The meshes were positioned on either side of the stage, so the audience could see in front of and behind the talent on stage - with eight 4K screens positioned all around, each individually controlled.
The losing G2 Esports team from Berlin during the Finals. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
The Riot Games team has over the last few years evolved what may be the most sophisticated at-home production model in the world, seeking to produce the world feed show from its studio in Los Angeles no matter where its tournament event is being staged - and in the process dramatically reducing the number of trucks and production people required on-site.
This year, in addition to the world feed being produced in LA, the English language show was produced at Riot's European headquarters facility in Berlin. So, for 2019, the League of Legends World Finals featured not one but two remote productions.
And in the heat of battle, Riot Games' Esports Technology Group decided to innovate with the new JPEG XS compression format - realising what is probably the first trans-Atlantic remote production undertaken using JPEG XS.
All of which meant the Finals were produced and sent to 40 distribution partners around the globe with just one OB truck on-site at the Accor Hotels Arena in Paris. That was NEP Sweden's UHD 1, used to cut the Opening Ceremony segment of the show, the in-venue screens production and to provide infrastructure for comms, signal distribution and some camera shading.
NEP Sweden combined with fellow NEP company Creative Technology (CT) to provide the audio infrastructure for both broadcast and in-venue, built around a Riedel Mediornet network with 280 ports and Riedel Bolero comms with around 70 beltpacks. Creative Technology also provided Roe LED screens and Barco projectors for the in-venue stage show, working closely with Riot's long-time technical production services partner Concom.
At the Arena on Saturday evening NEP Sweden engineer-in-charge Linus Malmborg told SVG Europe, The first part of the show is the Opening Ceremony, which is produced and directed here in this truck. In parallel with that we have an in-house production doing the screen feeds.
Packed Arena in Paris for League of Legends World Finals (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
And then when the Opening Ceremony is over we change to game mode. The producers for the game show will be here, but it will be cut and finalised in LA. That's mainly because all the servers for the observers [the computers providing the video of the game] and all the graphic elements are in LA and so it minimises delay and always keeps quality high. The end product is going out from LA.
The truck is basically a workplace and a huge stage box, which is linked to the huge stage box inside the venue provided by CT. Since this truck is based on Riedel's MediorNet we have extended all over the venue together with CT. Everything is on the same network.
We need to always bear latency in mind, which is why this solution was chosen rather than doing conventional signal distribution out from a hub. There is a fully redundant system here, so if LA goes down or fibre goes down there are game observers picking up here so we could do the show from here, said Malmborg.
Secret sauce: Riot Direct backbone
The core enabler for Riot Games production approach is its own Riot Direct network (the ISP used to service all LoL gameplay) to send feeds from tournament remotes back to the Los Angeles production facility. With multiple terabits of edge capacity, it's a resource they trust and leverage for the most reliable network. Riot sources local ISPs for the
North America Stories
25/04/2024
Sundance Institute Founder Robert Redford during a press conference at the 1996 ...
25/04/2024
alt= class=wp-image-12361 data-lazy-src=/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/NAB-booth-2024-960x540-1.jpg/> Set against a vibrant backdrop of innovation and collaboratio...
25/04/2024
alt= class=wp-image-12356 data-lazy-src=/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/NAB-mod-win-960x540-1.jpg/>NAB's Eric Trabb (right) awards SNS with two NAB Show Product...
25/04/2024
PHILADELPHIA Comcast beat earnings estimates in its Q1 2024 financial report, as streaming losses continued to decline and Peacock's paid subscribers spiked...
25/04/2024
SEATTLE The Seattle Kraken have inked new multi-year agreements with Tegna and Prime Video that will expand access to their games over broadcast stations and st...
25/04/2024
Cintel Scanner G3 HDR Restores Egypt's Cinema Treasures to Their Former Glo...
25/04/2024
Sinclair Broadcast Group said it named Kevin Coskren chief meteorologist at KTUL, its ABC affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma....
25/04/2024
The Business of TV News, a new one-day event featuring Martha Raddatz, Shannon Bream, Glenn Kirschner and other major figures in television news, happens at Hot...
25/04/2024
Conditions put on the proposed sale of WADL Detroit, to Mission Broadcasting have created a potential drama in the Motor City....
25/04/2024
TelevisaUnivision reported a $52 million loss in the first quarter, up from $3 m...
25/04/2024
Comcast reported flat first-quarter earnings as it reduced the red ink at Peacock but continued to lose video and broadband customers....
25/04/2024
Music-video network Vevo said it launched its app on Telly, the company offering consumers free dual-screen TVs in return for data about what they're watchi...
25/04/2024
Future Today said it has introduced a redesigned user interface for about half of its 300 streaming apps, including Fawesome, HappyKids and iFood.TV....
25/04/2024
Broadpeak , a leading provider of content delivery network (CDN) and video streaming solutions for content providers and pay-TV operators worldwide, announced t...
25/04/2024
Lightware Visual Engineering, a leading manufacturer of connectivity solutions for the professional integrated systems market and a pioneer in signal management...
25/04/2024
Net Insight has entered into a collaboration with DMC Production that positions Net Insight at the forefront of sports broadcasting in the Nordics. Net Insight ...
25/04/2024
GlobalM has announced a strategic partnership with scoopa, the specialists in broadcast-quality content distribution, offering a complementary service for live ...
25/04/2024
PlayBox Neo announces the completion of a new multichannel playout system for the DDish direct-to-home satellite television network in Mongolia. Based in the na...
25/04/2024
Canadian music producer and engineer Garth Richardson also known as Gggarth due to his stutter - has embraced immersive audio by installing a PMC monitoring s...
25/04/2024
Leading video software provider Synamedia today announced that Televisa, the Mexican telecommunications and broadcasting company, has chosen Synamedia as its pa...
25/04/2024
OTTera, a leading provider of end-to-end OTT and FAST channel solutions, proudly announces its strategic partnership with ThinkAnalytics, a global leader in adv...
25/04/2024
The American Tobacco Campus will be hopping with activity tonight and this weekend with two fun events!
Durham Night Market
At last! The Durham Night Market i...
25/04/2024
WEST CHESTER, Pa. Video commerce provider Qurate Retail Group has launched The Big Dish, a new culinary-themed FAST channel on The Roku Channel....
25/04/2024
LOS ANGELES The Hollywood Professional Association has announced that submissions for the 2024 HPA Engineering Excellence Awards are now being accepted. This re...
25/04/2024
NEW YORK The digital media measurement and analytics firm DoubleVerify has announced that it has received Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation for Video Vie...
25/04/2024
SAN FRANCISCO Fox Corp.'s ad-supported streaming service Tubi has announced a licensing agreement with the sports platform DAZN that will see DAZN Ringside ...
25/04/2024
NEW YORK In the runup to the 2024 IAB NewFronts, the IAB has announced three key appointments to its leadership team....
25/04/2024
Epic Games releases Unreal Engine 5.4 with new Motion Design Mode, Unreal VCam f...
25/04/2024
Content Creation, Production, Distribution Is In a State of Flux
Andy Marken April 24, 2024
0 Comments
My empathy is creeping towards what I would de...
25/04/2024
The Carolina Panthers and Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) announced they have...
25/04/2024
Berklee Student Riko Sasaski Named 2024 Yamaha Young Performing Artist The accomplished saxophonist secured a spot among the elite winners of this year's ...
25/04/2024
Stations everywhere take pride in having a main anchor who comes from the market they represent. That applies in St. Louis, too, but it also pertains to general...
25/04/2024
Edward Moody is joining the WBTW Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, anchor crew, and will anchor the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts alongside Trish Williford. He comes f...
25/04/2024
MTV said the 2024 Video Music Awards will return to New York and take place at the new UBS Arena....
25/04/2024
Season three of comedy The Outlaws premieres on Prime Video May 31. Stephen Merchant co-created the show, and stars. There are five episodes....
25/04/2024
The E.W. Scripps Co. is evaluating offers for Bounce, its multicast channel for African-American viewers, according to a report from CNBC....
25/04/2024
Paramount Plus has ordered a second season for Dora, the animated preschool show based on Dora the Explorer. The show, featuring Dora on a rainforest adventure ...
25/04/2024
April 25th, 2024 Press Materials Available Here
TRIBECA FESTIVAL 2024 ANNOUNCES AUDIO STORYTELLING AND GAMES LINEUP
Audio Storytelling Program Features 10th ...
25/04/2024
NFL Draft 2024: Verizon Expands Broadband Capacity To Handle the Spike in Demand Mobile cells will help accommodate first responders, social media, sports betti...
25/04/2024
NFL Draft 2024: NFL Media Teams With The Fantasy Footballers on Hybrid, REMI Pro...
25/04/2024
NFL Draft 2024: ESPN Motors Into Detroit With Trio of Simultaneous Live Presenta...
25/04/2024
Back to All News
Let the Pleasure Begin: Doctor Climax' and Its Steamy Q&A...
25/04/2024
Back to All News
Netflix Joins The Thursday Murder Club
Entertainment
25 April 2024
Global
Link copied to clipboard
Writer, Director: Chris Columbus
Prod...
25/04/2024
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
25/04/2024
Support for Battle.net on GeForce NOW expands this GFN Thursday, as titles from the iconic StarCraft and Diablo series come to the cloud.
StarCraft Remastered,...
24/04/2024
ATLANTA Mundo Hispano Digital has launched a new advertising product, MundoNow Connect, that is designed to help advertisers reach Hispanic audiences on connect...
24/04/2024
Epic Games has released a major new version of Unreal Engine, which has become a mainstay in virtual production, that includes new features and improvements to ...
24/04/2024
The National Association of Broadcasters welcomed the industry to its annual extravaganza last month in Las Vegas. The sights and sounds were similar to previou...
24/04/2024
NEW YORK Chptr and Gray Television have announced that they are introducing a new video solution for funeral homes and communities that will allow funeral direc...
Live from Paris: World-leading remote production for Riot Games' League of Legends Finals By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe 
