Nevion, a Sony Group Company and provider of virtualized media production solutions, announced that Viacom18, part of Network18 Group, one of India’s most diversified media and entertainment (M&E) conglomerates, has deployed Nevion’s contribution solution.

Oslo, Norway, 16 May, 2023 

The solution, delivered in just three weeks by Nevion, is being used for the live coverage of the hugely popular TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) of cricket.

Viacom18 owns the digital media rights for the TATA IPL to deliver on their OTT platform JioCinema. The media company required a solution to connect 12 stadiums to three of their studio locations, where the regional feeds are produced for the purpose of remote production and world feed contribution. The video and audio signals involved are pre-produced world feeds and individual camera feeds in both HD and UHD/4K, which need to be carried securely, reliably and in real-time over distances of up to 2,000km or 1,200 miles.

Viacom18 picked the Nevion solution that is fully redundant and offers hitless transport as per standard SMPTE 2022-7 to ensure signals are carried without interruption between locations. The solution is based on the software-defined media node Virtuoso and the media orchestration platform VideoIPath, both key building blocks of Sony’s Networked Live offering.

Virtuoso is used to transport up to 16 HD (3G SDI) and 4 x UHD (12G SDI) from the stadiums, as well as 4 x HD (3G SDI) return feeds, over diversified and redundant IP MPLS wide-area network (WAN). The video signals are compressed for transport using JPEG 2000 and JPEG XS to maintain high quality contribution feed with low latency.

VideoIPath initially provides the monitoring of network connectivity and signal flows. Its role will be extended in the next phases of the project to include network control and signals orchestration.

In addition, Nevion provided a variety of services, including on-site professional services to ensure the smooth deployment and running of this critical infrastructure supporting the very high-profile sports league.

S. Venkatraman, Head of C&D at Network18 explains: “We wanted to offer our millions of cricket fans a superlative UHD experience of the league with special regional adaption – both in terms of the languages and the focus of the games. This meant we had to design and build an infrastructure to match our ambitions, and in short time. We and our viewers are very happy with the outcome.”

Rajat Nigam, Group CTO, adds: “We had the vision of providing a never-before-experience of cricket to Indian viewers by providing live matches in UHD/4K format for the first time and in 12 languages including VR360 Cam experience. We had our own Video IP network of Jio and the solution which was developed in partnership with Nevion, gives us a high capacity and glitch-free video network from different locations in India. We have on an average more than 75 million consumers on our platform daily and have witnessed more than 24 million concurrent consumers on our OTT JioCinema”.

Hans Hasselback, Chief Commercial Officer at Nevion concludes: “This project is a perfect illustration of the importance of media networks in enabling business objectives. We were proud to have delivered that solution in record time and enjoyed the excellent collaboration we had with all involved in the project.”

About Viacom18

SViacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. is one of India’s fastest growing entertainment and sports network and a house of iconic brands that offers multi-platform, multi-generational and multicultural brand experiences. A group company of Network18, Viacom18 defines entertainment in India by touching the lives of people through its properties on air, online, on ground, in shop and through cinema.

About Networked Live

Sony and Nevion’s Networked Live is an ecosystem of solutions, products, services, and partners that combines hybrid on-premises and Cloud processing with network connectivity to transform the logistics and economics of high-quality mission critical live production. It does this by enabling resources (places, people, and processing) to be connected, used, and shared optimally and seamlessly in productions – regardless of their locations.

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