How Haivision Technology Powered Gravity Media’s Remote Production of the Pho3nix Sub7 Sub8 Triathlon
Gravity Media, a leading global provider of live broadcast facilities and production services, leveraged Haivision IP video contribution solutions to remotely produce live coverage of the Pho3nix Sub7 Sub8 Triathlon in Germany.
The 2022 Pho3nix Sub7 and Sub8 Triathlon was a two-day event that took place over 140.6 miles including 2.4 of swimming, 112 on a bike, and ending with a 26.2-mile run. The swimming portion featured a straight swim across a man-made lake leading to a bike course down a highway to the Dekra Lausitzring racetrack, where the athletes had to run to finish the race.
Solene Zavagno
General Manager, Gravity Media Frans
Gravity Media set up remote IP production between the Lausitzring racetrack and the company’s production center in Sydney, Australia to capture the race. In Germany, a TV studio and 16 cameras, including motorcycle, polecam, drone, and Shotover gyro-head cameras were used.
Each camera was equipped with a Haivision Pro380 transmitter and paired with one or two Haivision Quad external antennas. The Haivision transmitters captured and transmitted all footage from the race and TV studio at low latency over a bonded cellular network to Gravity Media’s production center in Sydney.
At the production center, the feeds were ingested and decoded by a Haivision StreamHub for distribution, after editing and mixing, to the Pho3nix Foundation’s social media platforms. To allow field crews to view current on-air programming, Gravity Media also relied on the Haivision Rack400 and Makito X4 video encoders to send video return feeds directly to the Pro380 field units with sub-second latency, in addition to the TV studio’s monitors with a Makito X4 decoder.
In total, the broadcast included nine hours of live racing, along with pre- and post-show content, guest interviews, pre-recorded content, and technical analysis. Over 50,000 worldwide viewers kept up with the triathlon via YouTube and Facebook, with a peak of 28,880 concurrent viewers watching the athletes finish under the target time of seven hours for men and eight for women.
“This event has been a great success at every level”, said Solene Zavagno, General Manager at Gravity Media Frans. “In addition to the technical achievement of this highly complicated and advanced set-up, which was brilliantly executed by the technical teams, the project was also a great collaboration between the Gravity Media offices across the globe.”
