11 o’clock on a Friday morning at IBC and a sizable crowd has gathered on the Red Bee Media stand in Hall 14.
Red Bee is demonstrating its ability to use the cloud for the delivery of live content. In this case a football match between Leyton Orient and Cambridge United. This is a youth game between teams in the 4th tier of English football. And it’s not everyday you hear a commentator remark on the quality of the cloud during a match.
In recent months, Red Bee has introduced cloud-based automation for ABC in Australia and has signed an extension to its Channel 4 contract that will see the UK broadcaster shift migrate to a software only play out platform.
Around IBC much is made of the ability to use the public cloud, but Red Bee believes this only goes so far, and has worked with Cisco to develop its own private cloud. It’s capable of running uncompressed video, at a low latency with sophisticated graphics.
From Leyton’s ground in East London the isolated cameras are back hauled and edited in the Red Bee facility in Hilversum. The practice means you’re not sending out big heavy trucks onto the roads or losing staff for several days just to run a 90 minute football match.
“As you lower the cost of production you can now enable more content and on sports that are visible with a niche solution,” says Red Bee’s CEO Steve Nylund. “Across Europe you’re seeing more important sports coming to the forefront. If you’re competing with a global giant it’s now possible to make it more affordable.”
Final Score: Leyton Orient 3 Cambridge United 1.
