LONDON—Featuring 40,000 runners and reportedly millions watching on traditional TV, production company Sportsbeat sought to expand the audience for the London Marathon to social media channels via a livestream. A combination of equipment was used to bring a high-quality production to platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, including the VidiU Go live streaming encoder and Link Pro bonded cellular Wi-Fi router.
A Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro, featuring a B4 lens, sent video to the VidiU Go. As part of the VidiU Go setup was two nodes that provided bonded 4G LTE data for extra redundancy in an area that featured many people trying to access the available network.
One of Sportsbeat’s producers carried the Link Pro Backpack, with six SIM cards from a combination U.K. carriers—EE, Vodafone, Three and 02. The bonded Wi-Fi signal from Link Pro served as an extra connection for the VidiU Go, giving it a total of three.
The team used VidiU Go, Core and Cube 625 to deliver video to a Blackmagic ATEM TV Studio to add graphics and perform mixing. This would feed the stream to a Blackmagic ATEM TV Studio to add graphics and perform mixing. Another VidiU Go would then send out the program to the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages for the London Marathon.
“With six different SIM cards on it, the Link Pro provided the crux of the bandwidth,” said Ric Sumner, head of broadcast and social and Sportsbeat. “The nodes on the VidiU Go also gave us extra backup just in case the data from the Link Pro dipped. The bonding was very consistent and reliable, and having two independent systems fully backed up with 4G modems gave us the peace of mind that we could broadcast from the crowded streets of the marathon without any issues.”
