Uplink your HD broadcast from anywhere – conveniently and affordably.
Uplink your HD broadcast from anywhere – conveniently and affordably
3xScreen’s HD Livepack shrinks a satellite truck into a backpack to uplink live HD broadcasts from anywhere with Satellite truck reliability but with backpack convenience and cost.
Technical Details
3xScreen’s HD Livepacks bond together up to 7 mobile broadband circuits along with available WiFi and Ethernet links to transport a HD (or SD) SDI video connection to the 3xScreen studio where additional live broadcast effects such as tickers, overlays and transitions can be added and the final HD production live streamed to internet audiences.
Since 7 mobile broadband connections are used to provide the underlying connectivity, each mobile broadband link is only required to contribute only a moderate amount of bandwidth to the overall connection and redundancy is provided by spreading the required bandwidth over seven separate links and multiple Mobile Operators.
Through utilising sophisticated smart-antenna technology, 3xScreen’s HD Livepacks have been proven to transport HD quality video signals even when the nearest 3G basestation is more than 9 miles away – and from moving vehicles in and out of town.
Even smarter, if the closest 3G basestations are subject to high traffic as they sometimes are for large events, the HD Livepack will simply connect to other basestations that are further away and are not overloaded by the event’s attendees.
Applications
No internet – no problem!
- Festivals
- Sports Events
- Press Conferences
- Mobile Productions
- Red Carpet Streaming
- Roving ENG Cameras….
… connectivity is a constant constraint for live streaming – or it was up until now.
3xScreen’s HD Livepack enables live broadcasting from anywhere and everywhere without the need for dedicated internet links or expensive and inconvenient satellite trucks.
HD Livepack Workflow
3xScreen’s usual live streaming workflow integrating HD Livepack venue connectivity is:
- accept either an SDI feed from the event’s broadcast partner or use one of our own Tricasters on site to deliver a produced SDI input to the HD Livepack
- HD Livepack connects to one of our studio or offsite backup Livepack Headend Servers over bonded 3G connection – adding WiFi and Ethernet to the mix if it is available
- SDI output from HD Livepack Headend is fed in to one of our studio Tricaster TCX850s TV studios where we add live stream specific broadcast effects such as opening and closing slates, tickers, lower thirds, name straps, etc and where we adjust audio levels and scale and adjust the video as required
- SDI output from Tricaster is fed to various encoders for adaptive multibitrate live streaming in Flash, Silverlight, for iPads/iPhones, live on YouTube, etc
At each stage of the workflow we monitor the video and audio feeds and have full redundancy set up for automatic (or fast) failure recovery.
In the UK we always use SIMs from at least 3 different operators. When outside the UK we use pre-paid mobile broadband SIMs, trying to use at least two different operators.
We normally use the HD Livepack solution in Max Quality mode which means a 11-12 second delay between the event and the studio. The delay can be cut down to 1.2 seconds in Interview Mode but that gives the HD Livepack solution less opportunity to adjust to mobile network bandwidth changes. In full HD mode the H.264 connection to the studio is generally about 3.5 Mbps and 2.2 Mbps in full SD, splitting that across available bandwidth sources.
HD Livepack also has an IFB audio return for communication from the studio to the remote unit.
Using the above workflow we are able to achieve Network TV-quality production values for the live stream with no need for prior site visits and with sending minimum kit and crew to site. In fact, we can also remotely manage our HD Livepacks so for regular clients we can produce a high quality live stream from anywhere by sending out a backpack and then performing all management from our studio – making the service even more flexible and affordable.
