51 XTREME Desafio Doñana
very autumn, athletes compete in a harrowing 200km triathlon circuit in a unique natural setting, starting in the historic centre
signal areas and using dierent means of transport. We had to change rapidly from one mode of transport to the other, starting with filming the cycling leg from a motorbike for 90km through secondary roads to immediately changing to a boat that followed swimmers crossing the mouth of the Guadalquivir river. Once this leg was finished, we had to jump into four- wheel drive vehicles to continue recording the race through Doñana National Park.” The core gear binding together this end-to-end coverage was the EnGo from Canadian manufacturer Dejero. This lightweight transmitter encodes video and transmits it using cellular, Wi-Fi and satellite connectivity at low latency and is ideal for challenging network conditions. It can be camera-mounted, vehicle-mounted or worn in a backpack, and its modem modules and SIMs can be changed and switched for specific regional networks. Guzmán and the Akedis team were already familiar with the Dejero equipment’s performance, but they had only used it for small connections in towns and areas with adequate signal, so they arranged a test prior to the event
of Cádiz and continuing throughout the Spanish Doñana National Park in Andalucía, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Sports production company Erizo.Media was responsible for producing race coverage and decided to make the leap from limited live content delivery using fixed checkpoint links, to a full live broadcast of the entire event. “The Doñana triathlon challenge is a special competition, both in terms of the spectacular surroundings and the order of the dierent legs,” explains Pepe Guzmán, technical manager of Erizo.Media and technical director of its dedicated production department, Akedis. The participants have to race over a 90km bicycle route, 1km of the Guadalquivir river crossing and over 40km of running track – and the production team has to keep up. “The main problems we faced were travelling long distances through low
A WI FI NETWORK WITH A RANGE OF ALMOST KM WAS DEPLOYED TO COVER BOTH THE START AND FINISH LINE AND THE TRANSITIONS
RACE TO THE LINE With this year’s move to a full live broadcast, the production crew needed to keep up with the athletes as they tackled the 200km course while also overcoming the challenge of low signal areas through secondary roads and a national park
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