Dejero Smart Blending Technology is being relied upon for the international broadcasting of The Rugby European Championship 2023 by its channel partner and international production company, Quality, to produce, deliver and distribute high-value content to the event’s 11 rights holders.
With Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain now out of the running now for the Champion’s spot, the Final is scheduled for 19 March, 2023 between defending Champions Georgia and remaining Portugal at Estadio Nuevo Vivero, Badajoz, Spain. Quality will also be covering the second and third, and sixth and seventh place finals in Bandajoz, as well as fourth and fifth place finals at NRCA Stadium in Amsterdam, which also take place on 19 March.
Quality has carried six Dejero EnGo video mobile transmitters across eight European cities to each stadium throughout the tournament. The EnGos, which have glass-to-glass latency of 0.5 seconds, transmit live feeds from six cameras at each match.
Two Dejero WayPoint receivers are located at Quality’s production hub in Madrid where final production including graphics and commentary take place. The WayPoint devices reconstruct and decode the video feeds which are entered into a matrix to be shared with the switcher and replay systems .The packaged video is then uplinked to Quality’s satellite provider via another Dejero EnGo from where the rights holders downlink the final content to air.
“The Dejero EnGos remove any vulnerability to network disruptions and outages that may occur on fiber, cable and DSL services by adding resilient wireless connectivity to the stadiums’ fixed-line broadband,” explains Santiago José Salgado, Executive Sports Producer, Quality.
The EnGo uses Dejero’s Smart Blending Technology, which aggregates multiple network technologies, including cellular and fiber, from multiple network providers to create a virtual ‘network of networks’ that delivers enhanced reliability. For The Rugby European Championships six local SIM cards from diverse cellular network carriers were fitted into each EnGo, which feature global modems. This provides Quality with extra confidence in the transmission path to get live feeds back to its broadcast hub in Madrid for final production and distribution.
The packaged content is then uplinked via satellite for distribution to the rights holders and inserted into the ingest system for logging and clipping.
“Just two years ago, at the last Rugby European Championships, we used Outside Broadcast (OB) vans to cover key matches, which meant sending a full production crew on site and relying on satellite connectivity,” explains Salgado. “Since then, we have developed a lean remote production model which means only the camera operators, a single producer and a single technician are required at the stadiums. Dejero solutions have played a key role in the success of this remote model.”
“The new workflow with Dejero EnGo backpacks, not only rewards us with significant cost savings, but also greater flexibility to meet the growing broadcasting demands of different productions.”
Quality also uses the Dejero Control cloud-based management system to view device performance. It gives the operations team the flexibility to centrally manage their Dejero equipment on the field from any web browser, enabling them to view their workflow data, preview low-latency feeds, and route live or recorded content to playout and online delivery workflows.
