Live Pacific Games broadcasts using LiveU's IP-video system were distributed over the internet with high resiliency to an array of broadcasters dispersed across the Pacific Islands region.
The 2023 Pacific Games took place 19 November to 2 December in the Solomon Islands, and were broadcast live to viewers in many of the participating countries and beyond. Started in 1963 and held every four years, the Games were established to strengthen bonds between the Pacific Islands and surrounding nations through sport. The games include 24 sports, including archery, athletics, basketball, football, judo and rugby.
Historically, the world feed recorded at the events has been transmitted via satellite and produced centrally with selective content. Using LiveU's IP-video system, live broadcasts this year were distributed over the open internet with high resiliency to an array of broadcasters and other customers, dispersed across the Pacific Islands region as well as Australia and New Zealand. LiveU was selected for its flexibility and affordable cost, and access to the LiveU Reliable Transport protocol (LRT). Throughout the games, the LiveU team was on hand for engineering and operational support.
LiveU's compact 5G LU300S encoders were deployed for point-to-point transmission, LiveU Ingest for cloud recording on-site and the rackmount LiveU Transceivers for uplinks and point-to-point transmission. LiveU Ingest is an automatic recording and metadata tagging system for live transmissions from the field. It also applies the associated metadata generated by ’s NRCS, before all content becomes immediately accessible over a web portal hosted in the LiveU cloud. From there, field crews and production teams are able to view, trim, download and publish content from wherever they are working.
Ingest is also compatible with 3rd party production tools, so that teams can edit and tag videos as part of an existing workflow. The system can increase the efficiency of a production and, by allowing video to be trimmed before it enters the asset management system, only relevant content need be saved, reducing certain storage costs and manual processes. Owing to its compatibility with different metadata formats, Ingest integrates fairly easily with many NRCS and MAM systems, and into various hybrid cloud or on-premises deployment scenarios.
Paul Vunituraga, Broadcast Manager, Pacific Games 2023, said, "These games mean so much to so many people. For many of the competing territories, it's the only time their teams compete internationally. We were looking for an effective, affordable, efficient alternative to satellite and were excited by the opportunities using LiveU's IP gear could bring us. Despite the challenging environments on the island, the quality and scope of the live production remained very high throughout the games. We could focus on covering all the different sports with engaging live content, while expanding our reach to new takers with peace of mind."
Chris Dredge, Country and Sales Manager – LiveU Pacific, said, "This major production demonstrates how LiveU can replace traditional broadcast methods for major sports events across the whole spectrum, from live contribution on the ground and cloud ingest to a variety of distribution methods." www.liveu.tv
