Beginning with the 2018/2019 season, Sportradar Media Services, part of Sportradar, is bringing every kick, tackle and talking point from the 240 matches of the Austrian Football Second League to viewers worldwide using LiveU LU600 HEVC units alongside the associated LiveU Central management platform and LiveU MultiPoint solution for content sharing and distribution. The technology has been supplied by LiveU’s Austrian partner ETAS High-Tech Systems.
Sportradar Media Services is the A/V production arm of Sportradar, providing contribution, production and distribution services for both online and linear broadcast TV. It operates the Laola1.tv international sports channel and OTT platform, which is Austria’s leading sports portal.
Christoph Reiermann, Production Manager, Broadcast, at Sportradar said: “In 2018, Sportradar won the exclusive rights to the Austrian Football Second League. In order to be able to provide the level of coverage, dynamism and flexibility that we wanted, at a cost-effective price point, we looked at cellular bonding. We tested many different systems and found that LiveU was the most capable of delivering a very stable signal with great image quality even at low latency. ETAS has also provided strong support.”
All production crews are equipped with LU600 HEVC units. Up to eight simultaneous feeds are transmitted to the LiveU servers in Sportradar’s Master Control Room (MCR) where the feeds are then further processed: live commentary is added, content is encoded for live streaming as well as handed over to playout for linear TV. While all matches are available live online on Laola1.tv (www.laola1.tv); at least 30 matches are shown exclusively on Laola1TV (OTT and linear TV) and another 30 matches are broadcast on Austrian TV.
Sportradar Media Services is also using LiveU MultiPoint to easily share feeds with other content takers around the world. MultiPoint seamlessly integrates into users’ daily workflows, allowing them to share incoming live feeds with multiple end-points from within the same LiveU Central interface they work with daily.
Reiermann added: “Being able to easily share feeds, which are then recorded and edited by the end users, was crucial for this project. LiveU MultiPoint is ideal for this, with a clear and easy-to-use interface plus the ability to connect with partners around the world for content sharing. We are very happy with all the LiveU technology and what it’s allowed us to achieve. This is a long-term rights contract so it’s vital that technology performs at a consistently high level.”
Zion Eilam, Regional VP Sales (EMEA), LiveU, said: “Our reach across the sports production market continues to grow as the performance, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of our product family is even more widely recognised. This project with Sportradar Media Services uses a wide range of LiveU technology to create the volume of content that they need and share it easily
