Capturing and sharing all of the excitement of live sporting events is no easy task, and covering live horse racing is no exception. Equestrian sport attracts a global audience of passionate fans who thrive on the excitement of a live event, but also want to stay on top of all of the news.
Thoroughbred Racing Productions (TRP) provides exclusive HD outside broadcast and production services to the Victorian Racing industry in Australia. For each of the 500+ races TRP covers each year, it provides:
- An integrated broadcast for the on-site screens
- A clean feed for broadcasters of free and paid programming
- A replay feed for the Stipendiary Stewards who manage the integrity of racing
But that’s not all. Recently, TRP has added daily news content for www.racing.com, a consumer-focused racing news site, to its list of responsibilities.
The challenge
Charles Cole, engineering and technical operations manager at TRP, began investigating affordable alternatives to traditional equipment so they could bring production in-house in 2011. The team needed the ability to:
- Capture broadcast-quality video of live horse races, trials, and other fast-paced events
- Include live crosses with experts in various fields
- Provide updates and reports from various locations across the continent
To summarize, they needed consistently high video quality with low latency, even in areas with unreliable cellular coverage.
Off to the races
Cole talked to Digistor, Dejero’s Australian distributor, and tried out the LIVE+ 20/20 transmitter by Dejero back in 2011. The LIVE+ 20/20 and its successor, the LIVE+ GoBox, are rugged transmitters for reliably broadcasting HD or SD video over any combination of cellular, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and satellite connections. Intelligent Connection Management technology auto-adapts HD, SD, and encoding bitrates based on network conditions to ensure consistently high video quality.
Cole was impressed with how it worked out, and TRP has been using the LIVE+ 20/20 regularly ever since. “We are now using our Dejero mobile transmitters regularly for live race trials and the reliability has been excellent in that time. The mobile data network service is only average at a couple of locations we go to so we use the 20/20 with a 4G hotspot to carry the payload,” said Cole.
Teams also use it when they travel to record interviews with trainers at remote locations. While the crew is driving back, they forward the clips to the Port Melbourne production base.
Keeping it simple
When TRP took on the added responsibility for live IP-based content for racing.com in 2015, it once again turned to Digistor to consult on the best solution. This time, three of Dejero’s LIVE+ VSET adaptive bitrate encoder/transmitter rack-mount systems were installed to significantly enhance TRP’s capabilities.
“When I look at solutions years ago there was the huge cost of telco supplies and the added complexities of having to book time and facilities to get it switched out,” says Cole. “Now the Dejero VSETs and server are sitting in a rack and the master control operator can quickly and easily locate files and route them out to wherever they are needed. But once we bought the Dejero transmitters, those costs dropped by 90%.”
All of TRP’s transmitters can be managed in the field or from a web browser using LIVE+ Control, Dejero’s cloud management, monitoring, and reporting tool. Live and recorded video can be routed to the broadcast center for on-air playout or to the cloud for online distribution. Additionally, operators at the broadcast center can remotely locate, monitor, and control the systems as well as switch and route live transmissions or recorded files.
Making headlines
Cole reports that Dejero’s products and service have made a huge impact on TRP’s operations. Bringing production in-house using Dejero equipment translated to a 90 percent cost savings and opened up endless possibilities for improved services to Racing Victoria.
“Dejero delivered quality vision which was very good despite a low bandwidth and we were impressed with how it handled the transport of the content once it was set up,” said Cole, adding, “The interface control system was intuitive and very easy to operate.”
Even though everything is easy to set up and operate, TRP crews are never on their own. As Cole puts it, “Dejero’s after-sales and support is second to none. We can email their engineers with any issue and they will respond and deal with it in minutes—their 24–hour support is just outstanding.”
Ready to see how Dejero can simplify your operations? Contact us.
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