By the end of last year, Vizrt had considerable experience under its belt in helping customers produce live productions in the cloud. Sky Germany presented the top match in the Liqui Moly Handball- Bundesliga between SG Flensburg-Handewitt and Füchse Berlin fully in the cloud, using Vizrt’s switching, graphics and sports analysis tools deployed in AWS. The broadcaster employed Viz Vectar Plus for switching, Viz Libero for sports analysis, plus Viz Engine and Viz Arc for graphics, using the NDI Bridge feature to bring the program feed from the cloud back to Sky HQ in Munich. The set-up included a mix of broadcast and mobile phone cameras, using simple 5G transmission – provided by O2 – to move signal from camera to cloud with near-zero latency. In addition to TV coverage, the game was streamed for fans on skysport.de, and Sky Sport Germany’s YouTube channel. A TRUE CLOUD PRODUCTION – WITH HARDLY ANY LATENCY
FOR THE FANS More recently, Vizrt helped the NHL implement a full-cloud workflow to create a dedicated fan-engagement feed. “It was really interesting. The feed was trying to reach the Gen Z audience and employed AR models and Roblox,” remarks Leadsom. “For the live broadcast, the director was in New York, the technical director in Los Angeles, and the analysis using Viz Libero was done from Toronto. A true cloud production – and there was hardly any latency.” Cloud-native parallel broadcasts like this create huge opportunities for reaching out to fans on multiple platforms, with content tailored to various audience segments. Most sports broadcasts start with a hybrid approach, choosing replay or graphics remotely in the cloud – with a switcher on-site, for example. “We’re at this hybrid level, where we want to provide the ability to choose which parts of the production the customer wants in the cloud, and which on-site.” Sports broadcasters will get a further boost from this year’s release of Viz Libero 8, Vizrt’s editorial analysis tool – and they will be employing it at the end of this year on one of the biggest events in the calendar. “Viz Libero 8, the latest update, was delivered after extensive customer research and feedback,” says Leadsom. “Every aspect has been improved, and we’re really pleased at the initial response. It comes
FROM A DISTANCE While the broadcast itself involves many moving parts, the logistics of a full-cloud workflow are simple and can be conducted anywhere
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