NEP Netherlands adopts the LU900Q with LIQ for low-latency live coverage during André Rieu’s open air summer concert, supported by LiveU’s local partner Heynen
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of his iconic summer concerts, André Rieu invited music fans to his beloved hometown of Maastricht. The local Vrijthof square provided a picture-perfect backdrop for a classical concert experience, starring the Dutch world-class violinist and conductor.
Given André Rieu’s popularity with music lovers Down Under, Channel 9 featured the concert in their Today Show. The hosts of Australia’s longest-running morning news show took advantage of the concert happening during Sydney morning hours and spoke live on air to a TV reporter in Maastricht.
Tasked to produce the live signal for Channel 9, NEP Netherlands faced the challenge of how to deliver the video feed to Australia in a cost-effective, yet reliable way. While IP-based video transmission was clearly the way to go, NEP arrived at the historic venue with a few open questions:
Would the on-site cellular connection support a broadcast-quality live uplink, would signal strength drop when 10,000 guests arrived and competed for bandwidth, and would they need a wired internet connection as back-up? NEP Netherlands turned to LiveU’s long-term local partner Heynen to put a bonded-cellular setup in place, built to answer exactly these three questions.
“NEP was commissioned by Andre Rieu Productions to provide a live connection with LiveU. Because we at NEP Netherlands possess extensive knowledge and a large LiveU product range, we decided to go on-site ourselves and facilitate Channel9 for this.”
Martijn Schokker, Senior Broadcast IT Engineer | NEP The Netherlands
An early tech adopter, NEP Netherlands chose the new LU900Q intelligent production unit with LiveU IQ (LIQ™) for transmitting the live interview feed to the Channel 9 studio in Sydney. In addition to two LiveU eSIMs, the NEP crew utilized three physical Vodafone SIM cards – all playing together to create a perfectly orchestrated connection symphony, despite thousands of guests accessing the same networks at the same time.
The actual magic happened in the background: facilitating automatic, AI-driven network switching, the LIQ connectivity service ensured maximum broadcast quality and reliability throughout the live broadcast. That way, the NEP crew could focus on producing a flawless video signal for The Today Show, with LiveU’s IFB solution providing stable two-way communication between Maastricht and Sydney.
“The biggest difference with the LU900Q is definitely the modems in combination with the eSIMs. The eSIMs connect lightning fast, allowing us to get online very quickly – it provided a very stable transmission to Australia. Furthermore, the new backpack feels solid, and the connector on the outside of the backpack is a great enhancement!”
Martijn Schokker, Senior Broadcast IT Engineer | NEP The Netherlands
