Seamless content production for live TV broadcasting with urban mobility

As a leading international broadcaster, TV2 Denmark A/S seeks to provide exciting, dynamic, and high-fidelity content wherever that may be. Current contribution methods are accompanied by all the difficulties of cables and satellites, which include lengthy and expensive setup times, limited performance monitoring and reduced mobility. As such, they sought to modernise how they stream live content data from their onsite cameras to production studio with urban mobility. The new solution had to enable guarantee high bandwidth from mobile camera device to production centre with urban mobility, even in congested areas.

By combining TDC Net’s world class 5G network with Ericsson’s innovative latency and visibility solution, TV2 explored fundamental improvements to its content production for live broadcasting by partnering with TDC NET and Ericsson. In doing so, they outlined three objectives the project needed to meet:

• To provide a reliable uplink service with efficient on-demand radio usage on a macro network
• To provide an end-to-end service from remote camera to production centre with a means of real-time performance analysis and secured connectivity
• A means to enable broadcaster and onsite camera operator to understand and adapt to the performance of the network in real time

By using network slicing with guaranteed radio resource partitioning for defined devices, powered by Ericsson radio access network (RAN) and 5G core technology, the macro network can cater to TV2’s precise needs. In addition, the radio resource is completely dynamic, allowing for added flexibility within mobile broadband sharing the same frequency.

The solution features a bespoke dashboard allowing for single-user observability and performance monitoring down to the level of a single-camera which can be studied for throughput, latency, jitter, and packet loss – all of which can be reported in real time. The Entreprise e2e SLA solution supplies valuable data on network quality throughout live video content production, connecting TDC NET Edge and TV2 MCR in Odense with secure SD-WAN technology, provided by Fortinet.

This ensured that video data would transmit to the exchange without delay and gave TV2 a new tool to monitoring network performance in real-time. The monitoring tool – or in the future API- has potential to allow video encoder/decoder to run more efficient and with even lower latency. Prioritised connectivity was provided end-to-end, extending TV2’s internal production network into TDC NET’s mobile network, creating a faster, more secure and stable connection for live video transmission. The result was excellent quality footage, gathered and disseminated flexibly, and with certainty of reliable transmission – without the need for heavy cables.

An example of this is what TV2 was able to achieve during the winner’s parade of Tour De France 2022, during which the car containing winner Jonas Vingegaard acted as a rolling remote production site – with three mounted cameras transmitting footage live back to TV2 MCR via 5G, where it was cut together with feed from helicopter and motorcycle cameras for the finished TV signal. Guaranteed reservation of upload capacity in that crowded scenario, with many onlookers drawing on the mobile network, is what allowed transmission of the signal with certainty.

Wider deployment would mean an industry populated by increasing numbers of producers able to rapidly report news and create compelling entertainment content at short notice wherever they are, without needing to rely so heavily on specialised technical setups – which would in turn, over time, stimulate entirely new types of content. The solution could also serve a range of other sectors relying on critical communications services, such as remote safety solutions in industrial settings and emergency services.