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Keywords: LiveU, UCI Cycling World Championships, 5G Live Streaming
The 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships took place in Glasgow, Scotland, from August 2 to 9. This year, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) combined multiple world championships into a single comprehensive event for the first time: a total of 13 world championships were held, including mountain biking, road cycling, track cycling (for both men and women), and para-cycling.
As the department of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) responsible for sports rights and event production, Eurovision Sport is in charge of the live broadcasting and production of competitions. This year, Eurovision Sport has fully integrated various solutions from the LiveU ecosystem, providing flexible, cost-effective, and eye-catching coverage for the largest UCI Road World Championships in history, resulting in a significant increase in global viewership.
Frank, the content and operations director at Eurovision Sport, said: “Live event broadcasting is a massive project. We aim to leverage innovative technology to improve cost efficiency while ensuring resilience on-site. We discussed two use cases with LiveU. The first scenario involves needing to bring signals back to the remote broadcast center BOC from various locations, including from motorcycles, helicopters, and other vehicles moving with the ENG teams. This is undoubtedly more cost-effective than using RF technology and provides us with flexibility. Secondly, we need an 'ultimate backup solution' to ensure the transmission network security across ten venues in Scotland. We require a resilient, IP-based solution with effective bonding technology. Therefore, we are using LiveU to bring back a pair of video streams from each venue.”
The on-site team at Actua Films deployed 12 multi-camera live production-grade encoders, LU800, for both content capture and signal protection. Frank added, "LiveU's encoders and technology are perfectly suited for use in mobile vehicles, maximizing their functionality." Meanwhile, Eurovision Sport successfully developed a hybrid production solution that fully leverages the advantages of LiveU's production and distribution solutions: deploying SDI to remote broadcast operation centers, supported by LiveU's cloud services. This allows for the simultaneous use of LiveU Matrix and Cloud Connect provided by LRT™, or for pushing SRT format video to various partners. In the digital content center, this content can be integrated with the LiveU ecosystem. Some partners wish to provide a large amount of material for their digital platforms without incurring costs on satellite channels. LiveU's production flow aligns perfectly with this demand. In certain events, some partners even created their own remote productions.
Eurovision is the world's largest public service media alliance, with 112 member organizations in 56 countries, and 30 affiliated institutions across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Eurovision Sport has established an extensive partnership with LiveU and officially set up a framework of solutions including live encoders, cloud services, and data packets two years ago.
Frank concluded, "LiveU's services and quality are outstanding, easily providing comprehensive solutions throughout the entire video production chain. The preset technology also covers all our member broadcasters. In the future, we will continue to seek collaborative innovation with LiveU."
Roy Hasson, Sales Director of LiveU Solutions, reflected: "This is a complex architectural solution, but LiveU's technology successfully covers the entire production chain. By deploying LiveU's solutions, Eurovision Sport has benefited from the advantages brought by LiveU's video IP solutions. As our relationship continues to develop, we look forward to achieving win-win cooperation on more projects in the future!"