IDEA Conference: The Tech & Trends Shaping Sports & Entertainment

Hey there! Ben & Jefferson here, writing from our LiveU Booth at the IDEA Conference hosted in Boston at TD Garden, Home of the Boston Bruins & Celtics. It was great meeting and learning from game presentation representatives from pretty much every team and every sport – from Football to Monster Jam.

LiveU is known for its popular bonded-cellular backpacks – but we are so much more! Especially when it comes to in-game, arena, and stadium presentations.

Here’s what people were the most interested in at our booth at the IDEA Conference. And yes – our backpacks, particularly our LU800 multi-camera production field unit, are great tools for getting footage around your venue where your wireless cameras can’t reach.

LiveU Ingest
A lot of attendees asked about getting their non-broadcast footage to editors for faster turnaround. We’re talking about gimbal cameras, cinematic shots, and everything in between. Even your social team can take advantage of this to boost social engagement. Want to get batting practice footage on air before the game starts or a beautiful touchdown shot for the fans? LiveU Ingest is the tool to make it happen!

Sports is a real-time industry, and we are here to help producers get footage to their editors in seconds. By streaming content live from one of our backpacks like the LU300S, users can have anyone on their team work with content right away. LiveU Ingest automatically records any feed that comes in – so no need for someone to start and monitor it. Simply review, trim and download high-quality footage from LiveU Ingest directly and connect it to your MAM and NRCS systems for growing files and connection to the your rundowns. My favorite feature is the integration with Trint, which allows users to get live real-time transcription of everything they ingest. This is great for press conferences, team meetings, fan interaction, and post-game shows.

If you have an interest in Frame.IO, Ikonic, Mimir, or any other video platform, we suggest reaching out and letting us share how LiveU Ingest can enhance the workflow.

LiveU Studio for Press Conferences
Another thing we heard from attendees was that they want to bring press conferences and non-network broadcasts to the next level. LiveU Studio is the perfect tool to up the production value. At its core, it’s a cloud control room that does everything the traditional control room can do. We’re talking replay, graphics, audio, recording, distribution, and more.

When LiveU Studio is used with a LiveU field unit, producers don’t need any extra hardware to stream live video right to the control room! LiveU Studio creates cloud servers dedicated to the control room, so all one needs is a web browser and a dream.

What are some good ways to upgrade pressers? Easiest thing to do is add lower thirds so people know who’s talking, and so additional context can be provided. We have an unlimited number of flexible templates to play video (and other elements), while the talent is presenting – so b-roll can be played alongside the commentary.

And if the goal is to get content in front of as many viewers as possible, LiveU Studio allows for streams to be delivered to 30 destinations simultaneously — all the major social networks, directly to local and national networks – in any format. Yes – that includes options for vertical video for the TikToks and the Instagrams of the world.

LiveU Studio for Game Broadcasts
LiveU Studio is also great for broadcasting games – particularly if you organizations don’t have the big networks backing them! Bring in up to 12 live cameras, add score bugs, use instant replay, integrate remote commentators, and so much more. Don’t worry – if using several LiveU field units — all the feeds will make it right to the control room in perfect sync. As I mentioned earlier – because LiveU Studio creates cloud servers, producers don’t need any additional hardware besides a camera. As much as we’d love our customers to use LiveU encoders, we understand production companies might have other encoders and video sources. The beauty of the LiveU EcoSystem, a modular solution of hardware, software, and service offerings, plays nice with other production technology and integrates seamlessly into existing workflows. LiveU Studio can take in just about any kind of feed – SRT, RTMP, whatever!

LiveU IQ
With tens of thousands of fans at a venue for a high-profile game, connectivity is of the utmost importance to producers to pull off a flawless production. We’ve made a huge leap forward with a boost to our LU800 field encoder, boasting stronger cellular connections than ever before! LiveU uses e-sims rather than physical sim cards, so we can dynamically choose the best provider for any given time and location. This means if one provider doesn’t have enough bandwidth (particularly at times like halftime or when a goal is scored), we automatically switch it to the strongest available provider. While a traditional encoder might see slight dips at peak times, our testing generally shows a resilient signal throughout an entire broadcast! This is the upgrade producers will want for their field units. Also – The LiveU LU800 with LiveU IQ is a great way to go live to your video screens where your RF doesn’t go during a game – in the concourse, in the clubhouse, even in the basement.

Book a Demo
We’d love to schedule a demo and learn more about your current workflows to see how we can help you out. We’ve grown our Sports team in the last few months – we’re ready to expand with you!