Whitepaper: Vislink Quantum Receiver Plays a Large Role in Wireless Camera Remote Production

Video production of live events is going through the most rapid of revolutions. Multiple changes are creating a dynamic environment that is challenging the way major events have been produced and delivered to the viewing public. A key driver of change in working practices and workflows is the rise of remote production techniques.

A transition to remote production of live events is enabling new efficiencies in production operations, creating improvements in home-life balance for staff and reducing the adverse impact on the world’s resources.

High bandwidth connectivity between the event and the production center is key to enabling the transition to remote production. Multiple camera feeds can now be transported back to the production center. Among those camera feeds could be content from wireless cameras – providing immersive images that bring viewers to the heart of the action.

Classic wireless camera systems incorporate a video encode-decode stage. For remote production, a further encode-decode stage is required to contribute the wireless video to the production center. These multiple stages of video compression can increase system complexity and increase CAPEX cost to build out the system. Video production of live events is going through the most rapid of revolutions. Multiple changes are creating a dynamic environment that is challenging the way major events have been produced and delivered to the viewing public. A key driver of change in working practices and workflows is the rise of remote production techniques.

For production teams, the creative freedom and impact that the wireless camera system adds often justifies the complexity and cost. But operators have been looking for more elegant and cost efficient ways to bring together wireless camera freedom and remote production efficiencies.

In re-architecting the wireless camera system and putting IP networking front-and-center, production teams can transform their workflows to deliver lower cost and higher video quality deployments. By splitting the RF reception and video decode functionality that a wireless camera receiver traditionally performs, separating the capability between the event and the broadcast center, production teams can deliver the system elegance and efficiencies that they seek.

Vislink’s IP-native Quantum receivers can be configured to serve at both ends of the production chain – linked through IP connectivity. A Vislink Quantum receiver located at the event can perform RF demodulation and stream adaptation functions of MRC diversity and packet switching to ensure robust reception from the wireless camera. The event-located Quantum receiver can then forward the compressed video feed from the wireless camera over the IP network to the production center.

At the production center, a 2nd Vislink Quantum receiver can perform ultra-low latency video decode to feed the event director’s choice of camera views.

By contributing the compressed video feed from the wireless camera directly into the production center with a more elegant Vislink Quantum IP-native remote production system, production organisations can save significant CAPEX costs. Removal of separate contribution encoders and decoders, to transport wireless camera video to the broadcast center reduces equipment provision and can create typical savings of nearly 30% on new system deployments.

With much focus on high quality 4k and HDR formats, the removal of a stage of encode-decode compression concatenation can increase video quality and help to ensure that the wireless camera provides video quality excellence to complement line cameras that might make up the rest of the camera views.

Wireless cameras rely on video compression to achieve RF transmission within a regulated bandwidth, the processing latency in achieving that video compression stage often receives close focus. Matching timing of action sequences between line cameras that have near-zero delay and wireless cameras with their compression latencies can create issues. Removing an additional video compression stage from the wireless camera contribution link has the effect of reducing latencies on wireless camera feeds and allows all video sources – wired or wireless to be more closely matched.

The introduction of Vislink’s Quantum wireless camera receiver strongly leverages the benefits of its IP-native connectivity. Video production teams can now move forward into operationally efficient remote production systems with an architecture that increases video quality, reduces system complexity, allows matching of system latencies and reduces CAPEX costs by up to 30%.

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