MONTREAL—Haivision Systems has announced that the Philadelphia Eagles are leveraging its ultra-low latency Makito X4 video encoder and decoder pair to stream synchronized multi-camera live video feeds from remote venues back to their broadcast studio to produce pre-and post-game content for fans.
“No other company offers the compact form factor of the Makito X4 encoder, which allows us to simultaneously send streams from four cameras in sync back to our studio in 200 milliseconds,” said David Sullivan, senior broadcast and media engineer, Philadelphia Eagles. “It’s been a total game-changer. We turned it on and immediately saw the benefits. Not only has the Makito X4 made our workflows easier and faster to set up, but it has also made our overall production look better.”
When the team travels to away games, Philadelphia Eagles live stream content to audiences watching on YouTube and Facebook, as well as to the philadelphiaeagles.com website and their mobile app. But when working at remote venues, getting low-latency communications can be difficult.
On-field, sideline, and end-zone cameras need to be set up, and there are logistics involved in managing frequencies and wiring, often in an unfamiliar stadium. Once the cameras are in place, video signals need to be synchronized and brought back at sub-second latency to their studio in Philadelphia. This used to mean transporting a large amount of broadcast gear as well as employees to operate the equipment, the companies said.
With a focus on reducing setup time, costs, and logistical complexity, the Philadelphia Eagles turned to Haivision’s compact Makito X4 Encoder to encode four HD video inputs simultaneously at very low latency while keeping the outgoing streams in sync.
By using the Makito X4 encoder, the Eagles have been able to reduce the number of staff needed to travel to away games as everything can be managed remotely, providing significant time and cost efficiencies as well as peace of mind when it comes to reliability and ease of use, Haivision said.
“We’re pleased to see that the Makito X4 is providing the Eagles’ media team with a stellar solution to streamline its workflows and deliver a wider range of content to fans,” explained Brian Henry, Haivision’s senior vice president, sales. “With its exceptional video quality, low latency SRT streaming, along with the highest available 4K UHD and HD encoding density, we’re extremely proud of the powerful potential that the Makito X4 offers for broadcast and remote production applications.”
More information about the Makito X4 video encoder is available here.
