From the ground to the cloud: LiveU enables full cloud production of European League of Football (ELF) matches
ELF scales up live coverage with LiveU's game-changing remote production solutions
THE CHALLENGE
With the European League of Football (ELF) being established in 2021 as a professional American Football League "made in Europe", Germany-based production company novel.media has been the official on-air design and production partner from day one. During the first two seasons, all live production was handled on-site at the various stadiums across Europe. For this purpose, novel.media deployed an LU600 to transmit the final, on-site produced feed.
As the League has become more popular with European sports fans, the number of matches broadcast has grown accordingly. With up to four games running concurrently in different stadiums, producing all matches on-site simply became impossible for novel.media to handle in terms of logistics, staff, and costs. Thus, they were looking for a faster, more efficient and streamlined way of working.
“We need broadcast quality and the reliability LiveU brings. This is high value content. LiveU absolutely delivers for us. If you’re moving around venues, and you need to do this as cost-effectively as possible, then its technology is the best and most reliable as far as we’re concerned. LiveU offers unmatched flexibility for us.”
Levon Melikian, Managing Director, novel.media
THE SOLUTION
LiveU EcoSystem with its IP-video solutions enabled novel.media to level up their production game. On the ground, they deploy a total of 12x multi-cam LU800 encoders. Each unit is transmitting up to four frame-synced camera signals in 1080p/50, with the feeds being received by LiveU cloud servers with minimal delay. This sets the stage for remote production in the AWS cloud.
The actual cloud production is carried out in four purpose-built production studios in novel.media’s Munich HQ. The open architecture of the LiveU EcoSystem allows for the live signals to be integrated seamlessly with various cloud production tools. Vizrt solutions are being used for live mixing and real-time data graphics. Multi-language commentaries are added using the Spalk solution.
“Scaling live production would not have been possible without the flexibility offered by LiveU. Working closely with novel.media, we can add as many LiveU units as we need to cloud production at any time. We are now able to create more creative live content with minimal effort, increasing our revenue.”
Zeljko Karajica, CEO of the European League of Football
THE RESULT
The final live feeds are being shared with broadcasters across Europe such as ProSieben Maxx in Germany or Network 4 in Hungary. In addition, the live games are accessible to fans worldwide on ELF’s digital platform via its Game Pass, increasing monetization for the emerging sport. With this cross-platform approach, ELF is continually expanding its audience and engaging fans on a whole new scale.