30 ESPORTS FOCUS Production
delivered to fans watching any football or basketball game. “For ESL’s first-person shooter games, we worked out a way to place observer PCs into a live game to view the action as if they were cameras,” explains Fischer. “Feeds from these are recorded in the PCs’ native 120Hz and ingested by the EVS server. ESL’s technical team use an LSM controller to create a replay in the same way they would for a traditional broadcast, slowing down the feed to the broadcast- standard 60Hz. This creates a half-speed replay with completely smooth playout and absolutely no loss of frames.” ESL also deploy EVS DYVI which is a video switcher built on an IT/software- defined architecture. This means ESL can create a program set-up within DYVI for each of the games played at any given tournament. Then, as live production begins, the technical director can instantly recall the games’ configuration with the press of a button and begin cutting
together a programme without any unnecessary delay between events. It’s not all EVS kit at ESL. The producer also uses the Ross Video Carbonite Black production switcher and XPression graphic platform. MORE FRAMES FOR BETTER GAMES The typical streaming format for esports is 1080p/60 or 50, which mirrors that of gaming machines. “There’s no option to broadcast fast- action games like Overwatch or Fortnite in anything else,” says Fischer. “Audiences at home just wouldn´t accept it.” Higher resolutions and framerates are obviously nice, but it is arguably better to have a stable stream for the viewer to watch than to drop frames or risk buffering and lag.
A major difference between conventional sport and an esport event is that the audience at the venue don’t just want to sit and watch the game
AID FOR PRODUCTION TEAMS ESL finds that setting up a program within EVS DYVI cuts delays between events when the live production process starts
feedzine feed.zine feedmagazine.tv
Powered by FlippingBook