Broadcasters always seek the best equipment to cover live sporting feats at the highest level. Traditionally, broadcasters have attended major sports events in commentary positions designed by host broadcasters for dozens of broadcasters from around the world. In recent times, hybrid coverage methods have emerged whereby networks include teams broadcasting on-site and off-tube in the home country.
Remote Sports Play-by-Play from Home
In many countries there has been an increase in the number of sportscasters calling games from home studios using remote codecs like Tieline’s ViA due to:
- Flexibility: allowing key people to remain in their hometown or country and participate in live coverage.
- Cost: reduced budgets require hybrid remote sports solutions to save on travel costs.
- The pandemic: maintaining a safe working environment became a priority for broadcasters.
It was widely reported that hundreds of NBC sports staff worked remotely from their Stamford headquarters due to capacity restrictions at the Olympic Games in Japan. This scenario was not uncommon with other networks doing the same in many countries. This has become the new normal for many broadcasters, whereby pandemic efficiencies learned through necessity have led to permanent workflow changes.
Hybrid Broadcast Workflows
Traditionally, networks have pooled their resources at the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) at major events such as the Olympics, World Cup football or Commonwealth Games. This involves acquiring video feeds and sound effects from the host broadcaster, and mixing this with their own commentary teams, interspersed with unilateral interview feeds, to provide mixed audio and video for live coverage.
The hybrid model combines some of the aforementioned techniques, with off-tube coverage from the home country. Using remote codecs like the ViA it is possible to stream live audio from anywhere and combine these feeds with live pictures from major events. This has many advantages:
- Sports broadcast professionals can work from their home city, providing flexibility
- Cost reductions from travel and accommodation savings
- Direct connections from live events to the home country reduces equipment requirements at live events and associated costs
In the hybrid model, vision and sound feeds can still be acquired from the host broadcaster and then combined with live off-tube play-by-play commentary in the home country. In recent times the ViA has been successful in delivering pristine, ultra-low latency audio over IP networks like the internet for Olympics, World Athletics Championships, and Commonwealth Games coverage to name a few.
Importantly, every announcer can be fully remote controlled from the home studio and stadium over an internet connection. Tieline has software solutions like the Cloud Codec Controller that can remotely control and configure every aspect of a live codec connection in real-time from anywhere.
Live Tour de France Coverage
Codecs like the ViA have portability and connectivity advantages that support a variety of other use cases as well. During the Tour de France the ViA has been deployed by Radio France in a variety of scenarios. It has been used inside a broadcast truck for commentary as well as on top of the van as riders entered Paris. It was also used at various fixed points during the event and for live coverage of riders throughout the entire Tour. ViA codecs were positioned on motorcycles in a top box with cellular connectivity.
The ViA supports up to seven IP interfaces, including four cellular options: 2 USB and 2 with an internal dual active SIM module. It also offers built-in Wi-Fi and dual Ethernet ports. The codec also supports hitless protection switching through SmartStream PLUS redundant streaming, as well as data aggregation with Fuse-IP technology.
The world’s largest broadcasters have successfully used Tieline codecs to go live and call some of the world’s most watched sports and live events. With the Winter Olympics on the horizon in February 2026, there is no time to waste in planning coverage at this prestigious event.
