Dejero is providing the NBA 2K League with remote connectivity equipment, via Defacto Entertainment and facilities partner Dome Productions, to help the professional esports league save its season threatened by the ongoing pandemic that prevented its 23 teams from gaming together in the league’s new Manhattan studio. The esports league has shifted from a studio-based production model to a large-scale pan-North America remote gameplay production model. The games air on multiple digital and linear platforms including ESPN, YouTube and Twitch. To bypass the security challenges posed by the open source networks used by the teams from their homes, and address fluctuating bandwidth in various locations, Dejero provided a combination of EnGo mobile transmitters and PathWay rack-mounted encoders/transmitters to Dome Productions. The Dome Productions control room, located in Toronto, is receiving, mixing and distributing the large number of live feeds from teams aided by the Dejero WayPoint receiver, and live commentary feeds from two ‘casters’ located in Chicago and North Carolina; with Defacto Entertainment producing and directing the broadcasts in real time from their offices in Vancouver. The low latency of the Dejero CuePoint return video server ensures commentary on live feeds without lag.
Futuri says use of its audience engagement technology is up as many continue to work remotely amid COVID-19 disruptions. Futuri compared product usage data from the four-month period prior to mid-March coronavirus disruptions to the four-month period since. It says TopicPulse, its AI-driven show prep, story discovery, and social content system has seen a 61% increase in user sessions, while podcasting and audio-on-demand production system POST has seen a 27% increase in usage. Futuri says much of that growth is driven by stations using its web-based logger feature to help time-shift live content for audiences who now operate on a different schedule. Total listening hours across Futuri Streaming have increased 41% across the group of stations that use the product as listeners whose normal routines have been disrupted seek new ways to listen to their favourite stations.
Bob Orban hosts an Aug. 27 webinar on achieving excellent audio quality, both on-air and online. Find details on how you can join, in Broadcast Dialogue’s EVENTS section.
