The APP World Tour started broadcasting live webcasts from the surf and race events in 2012. Not always having the biggest budgets in the world has made Christian Henning, the Head of Media for the Tour, learn to find new and exciting ways to stay ahead of the curve and compete with larger sporting federations when it comes to attracting the attention of existing fans as well as newcomers to the sport. When faced with upgrading and modernizing their webcast, the APP World Tour had a lot to consider. As the World Championship Tour for Stand-Up Paddle Board Surfing and Racing, their webcasts predominately take place on humid, salty, sandy beaches across the globe.

Up until the end of 2019, the APP World Tour ran standard SDI cable to a hardware switcher for their Live Webcasts, but then the global pandemic hit in 2020 and everything changed. While the pandemic was horrible, it was one of the most innovative periods in the media industry because it pushed the industry to use new technologies to reach the audience and stay connected from afar.

One of these new technologies is SRT.  This method of transporting video and audio data across closed and open networks will forever change the way things are done in our industry. Doing remote broadcast is not unheard of but it’s only been accessible for those with extremely large media budgets, and even then, you still were only sending one dirty feed and one clean feed to your network or final destination. SRT has made it possible for any size production to make use of remote broadcasting or even full REMI broadcasts by saving time, money and wear and tear on your gear.

So how can a smaller sports league with a modest media budget not only create a full REMI (Remote Integration Model) broadcast, but do so in a manner that will guarantee the best quality video feeds will always make it to the studio back at the HQ with the lowest latency possible?

Enter Datavideo and the BB-1KIT paired with their dvCloud service.

The Datavideo BB-1 allows the team at APP World to connect up to five PTZ Cameras or SRT Encoders networked through dvCloud on its counterpart BB-1 in the studio in Portugal, making it look like the cameras in London, or Korea , Or Gran Canaria or Hawaii are in fact in the same room. The dvCloud service allows them to use up to five BB-1 units per data pipeline. APP World Tour is currently running two BB-1’s in the field and one in the studio to bring in all the camera feeds plus send the dirty and clean PGM feeds back into the field that are needed for the local drone and roving camera as well as the announcers.

“In years before, we would take a team of 15 or more around the world to each surf location to film and run the webcast. This year, for the 2022 season we built out our production studio in Portugal where the entire webcast team now works out of including 3 PTZ camera operators,” said Christian Henning, The Head of Media at APP World Tour. “Then we take only [me] as lead producers, one video tech a drone pilot and one roving ENG camera op, and our announcers on location to set up our PTZ Cameras and get the same media and content as [we did] years before.”

The key to this remote workflow is the ability to send broadcast quality 1080p60 camera feeds to the studio in Portugal from all locations across the globe. In addition, all the camera feeds need to remain in sync and that they achieve the lowest latency as possible.

In the past, the team had used some of the more well-known bonded cellular data packs for remote broadcasts on the ocean races but at best, it was only a 5 to 10 second delay between what’s happening in the field and what is on the screen in the studio. Making it harder for the Director and the camera teams in the field. In order for the team to be able to fully go remote and not bring the whole camera crew on the road, but to start utilizing PTZ Cameras for action angles, they needed something that can ensure sub one second latency.

 The only way to achieve this is with SRT and a solid and affordable data pipeline as well as a gate keeper on both ends, something more than just a solid SRT encoder and Decoder.

“Datavideo’s BB-1 is a game changer for the future of broadcasting no matter what size production. This little black box will change how you do things and what you think of as possible,” Henning began. “At its heart, the BB-1 KIT that includes two small BB-1 units is a pair of gateways that operates on the dvCloud data pipeline at a cost that even AWS can’t really give you. I have created SRT back-end pipelines and tried managing and maintaining them on my own with things like WoWza and AWS but unless you are a networking IT guru and you are able to constantly sit and monitor to adjust things you are going to run in to trouble especially when operating in new locations with different [Internet bandwidth],” Henning continued. “Datavideo’s dvCloud data pipeline cannot be beat when it comes to cost, function and reliability.”

SRT technology gives a director and producer the ability to send Program return to the crew in the field as well as tally and comms. The BB-1 and dvCloud combined with SRT gives the PTZ camera operators in the studio in Portugal control of their cameras low latency as below 200ms and or even 60ms if they are in London.

 “By making the BB-1 units and dvCloud part of my production, it has helped me cut my media budget nearly in half and then put that money back into my team and our gear to keep building out and upgrading our new way of doing live broadcasts, “said Henning. “Having found the BB-1 and a company like Datavideo who have gone ABOVE and beyond what one could expect or ask in customer service, to the point of having one of their main engineers who worked on and built the BB-1 and dvCloud come on location in London and share some of his time and knowledge (thanks Adam), has helped our team immensely. Datavideo has become not only our go to for SRT gear but a trusted partner in my broadcast team.”