Globecast empowered Infront to use cloud streaming for IIHF 2021

July 7, 2021

1 minute read

Globecast partners with Infront to carry coverage of the World Ice Hockey Championships by providing dual Master Control Rooms. — Globecast’s VoD Manager. Source: Globecast.

Globecast, the solutions provider for media and content management, has announced that Infront, a Wanda Sports Group company, partnered with the company for the delivery of global distribution services for the 2021 IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) World Championships, held recently in Riga, Latvia.

Globecast provided all of the encoding and connectivity from the site for the contribution path back to London via fibre, along with international distribution of the world feed.

Onsite, encoding and monitoring solutions were provided across two diverse stadiums in Riga, allowing for full diversity and disaster recovery while adapting to COVID protocols.

With Globecast’s engineering talent it was able to provide dual and diverse MCRs (master control rooms), not only for all the feeds going out but also the return global distribution feeds so that Infront could see what their customers were receiving. The feeds were sent to the UK for onwards distribution, using Globecast’s teleport infrastructure.

James Whittaker, Globecast’s Business Development Manager, said, “This is the first time we’ve worked on the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships, which is exciting for us, and is a marquee event for Infront.

“This project forms part of a multi-year, multi-sports partnership we have with Infront. Other sports for which we have already provided services to them include the European Handball League, The Champions Hockey League, Tour De Suisse (cycling) as well as volleyball and athletics.”

With the provision of multiplatform services for Infront, Globecast is making full use of its satellite connectivity and global teleports, alongside its intercontinental fibre network. These traditional delivery methods have been smoothly combined with cloud technology.

Infront is benefitting not only from cloud-based streaming, but also a monitoring solution that allows services to be seen in real time, over IP. Contribution content can be viewed at all the key points of the transmission chain.