18
485 LiveU units
deployed for World Cup
During the recently concluded 2018 FIFA
World Cup in Russia, 485 LiveU units were
used by the company’s customers in more
than 40 countries. Solutions such as the
LU600 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) HEVC/H.265
solution enabled over 15,000 hours of
live broadcasting, more than 30,000
live sessions and 36TB of transmission,
reported LiveU. Samuel Wasserman, CEO
and co-founder of LiveU, said: “LiveU’s
HEVC/H.265 technology worked flawlessly
throughout the tournament, showing its
capabilities for live sports coverage in the
most challenging conditions.”
CETel achieves full
certification from WTA
The World Teleport Association (WTA) has
announced that CETel has achieved Tier
3 full certification of its teleport under
WTA’s Teleport Certification Programme.
CETel is the 15th teleport worldwide,
and the 10th in Europe to be fully
certified by WTA since the certification
programme was introduced at IBC 2015.
To achieve Full Certification under WTA’s
programme, an auditor is dispatched to
visit the teleport, provide independent
validation of the data submitted in a
questionnaire, and identify additional
factors that may positively or negatively
affect the score. Full certification is issued
at a Tier 1 through to Tier 4, of which
Tier 4 represents the highest degree of
excellence, and remains in effect for three
years.
Next Month @ Distribution
Network Origination Facilities
(Earth Stations)
PANELLISTS
August 2018
On the road with
the best-equipped
OB vehicles
While remote production may
be increasingly popular, the
traditional outside broadcast
vehicle still has an important
role to play in live production,
as Shawn Liew finds out.
T
he recently concluded Wimbledon 2018
tennis tournament was a momentous
for NEP UK, an NEP Broadcast Services
Company.
Not only did it continue a 35-year rela-
tionship with the All England Lawn Tennis
Club (AELTC) — where Wimbledon
has traditionally been held — NEP UK
also delivered what it calls the “first”
Wimbledon tournament to be broadcast
utilising the SMPTE ST 2110 standard.
Wor k i ng i n p ar t n e r s h ip w it h
Wimbledon Broadcast Services (WBS),
NEP UK delivered IP technical facilities
for its in-house production of Wimbledon
2018. Specifically, NEP UK deployed its
new IP-based outside broadcast (OB)
trucks; this, said the company, offered
increased flexibility compared to coaxial
cable connections, and “significantly re-
duced” the expense and use of unsightly
cabling throughout the grounds of AELTC.
NEP UK was also able to expand the OB
vehicles’ capacity and facilities via modu-
lar connection with multiple IP fly-packs.
Rob Newton, director of engineering
and CTO, NEP UK, tells APB: “This was
a project, the scale of which has not been
seen before, in IP. Therefore, the chal-
lenges were: learning curves for the
crews using the technology and the
cutting-edge hardware with the asso-
ciated teething problems and software
updates that new technology brings.
“In the end, it was remarkably
smooth, considering the total change
in workflow, and we are proud of the
result and the crews who used the
technology.”
The key installations in Venus and
Ceres, NEP UK’s two IP trucks, are
based on Arista 7504 switches, used
in collaboration with Grass Valley
gateway cards and Kahuna mixers.
During Wimbledon 2018, these were
trucked together with the redundant
Arista 7508 switches within the fly
pack area to provide one distributed
routing system,
A big advantage of the system,
Newton reveals, is its scalability, which
allows NEP UK to add extra IO with
the truck or remote