As with all major events, planning for the Royal Wedding and surveying potential broadcast locations and securing reliable connectivity for video over IP workflows was top of mind for Canada’s Global TV. For major live broadcasts, in particular, when the entire world is watching, an extremely high degree of confidence is crucial because the live feeds need to be transmitted without fail.
On this royal occasion in May, the eagerly anticipated wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Dejero’s CellSat blended connectivity solution provided Global TV with that confidence as they went live in Windsor, where large crowds were likely to cause havoc with cellular network traffic, and fiber was not readily available given the temporary locations of the live shots. What’s more, this occasion saw the first deployment of CellSat in Europe, so the customer’s belief in the solution was unfaltering.
Behind the scenes of live production is rarely glamorous.
On the day of the event, Global TV was tucked into a very small area next to a cafe outside Windsor Castle. They were also surrounded by nearly a hundred thousand visitors, live streaming and posting photos back to their friends and families around the world, congesting the cellular networks.
When I was working on site with Mark Blanchard, Manager, Network Services, Global Television Canada, he told me: “The challenge for us is there’s no reliable network that we can use to get our path out where it needs to be.”
A vehicle equipped with a satellite antenna was not an option for this event, given the constraints of the Windsor location. With restricted space available for equipment, a versatile and reliable fly-away solution was needed. The Dejero CellSat solution demonstrated its versatility to Global TV for this critical coverage.
CellSat intelligently blends cellular connectivity from multiple mobile network carriers with Intelsat’s Ku-band IP satellite connectivity to provide the necessary bandwidth on demand. This enables broadcasters to reliably deliver exceptional picture quality while on location.
Providing enhanced reliability and HEVC picture quality in situations where cellular networks are congested or cell coverage is limited, CellSat leverages network blending technology to improve reliability. If available cellular bandwidth dips, additional satellite bandwidth is automatically provided to the blended network.
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