found in its Sports’ New TV Formula report that almost half of young NFL, NBA and MLB fans prefer watching highlights over a complete game. So, rightsholders must now be able to upload live content onto social, catch-up, streaming and other VOD platforms as quickly as possible, or risk losing eyeballs. The challenge lies in getting the VOD elements from live events quickly enough. For some broadcasters, this is a process that can potentially take days. With traditional workflows, we record the output of the production, and the customer processes it through an internal processing system. In this scenario, the high-quality recorded file might be 300Gb or larger, and needs to be transcoded and trimmed before being pushed to the VOD platform. By leveraging cloud-based production tools, rightsholders can rapidly accelerate this and get their clips onto VOD platforms almost instantaneously. The mechanism is faster because the streaming and the clipping and editing are concurrent with the live feed. This method allows the clips to be published in the same format as they appear live – eliminating the need to decorate the feed with graphics and overlays
CONTENT MAY START LIVE, BUT IT ALL EVENTUALLY BECOMES VIDEOONDEMAND
performance is happening, sharing first-half reports before the second half kicks off. Speed is the critical advantage in this process. Once the audience knows the game’s results or who’s won the award – either through social media or word of mouth – they’re less interested in the content. By leveraging live production in the cloud and its rapid clipping and editing capabilities, broadcasters and live event producers can significantly extend the lifespan of their content – while opening new revenue streams. With programming stretching across a broad spectrum, from analysing the match-up ahead of a game and capturing celeb interviews, to talking through the betting landscape and streaming every post-game press conference, the speed, flexibility and efficiency of cloud tools ensures that rightsholders get more out of their assets.
during the live-to-VOD transition. They are instantly available as VOD assets to the customers. This cloud-based approach offers a more elegant workflow than a traditional broadcast set-up. NO TRADE-OFF IN QUALITY One of the major pluses of embracing a cloud-based approach to live production is there is no trade-off in quality, despite the rapid live-to- VOD transition. Given that we record the output of the production in a live scenario anyway, the content is already in a suitable condition for VOD delivery, usually in H.264 encoding format at between 10Mbps and 20Mbps. The content is recorded straight in the cloud, where the clipping and editing is done. Also, highlights can then be posted straight to social media – in near real time. Cloud tools enable broadcasters to post highlights while the game or
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK Maru Group’s research tracks changes in generational engagement with sport, and the tech driving it
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