The role that AV plays in live events and broadcasts

role the

that AV plays in live events and broadcasts.

The live events industry has been on the rollercoaster ride since the start of the pandemic. The industry shut its doors to the public on multiple occasions since March 2020. As the saying goes: when one door closes, another opens! Without live events, streaming and broadcasting practices have taken the centre stage, encouraged and supported by mass innovation.

Shortly after the first lockdown, we saw a rise in online content sharing. The live events industry had to adapt to the new reality and virtual and hybrid events were introduced. XR studios made history during Katy Perry’s performance for the American Idol finale, introducing Extended Reality (XR) to live broadcasting1. XR technology and other immersive technology types that sit under the XR umbrella, such as MR (Mixed Reality), AR (Augmented Reality) and VP (Virtual Production) are expected to grow in the mainstream media, creating engaging experiences for live and remote audiences.

“I realise we’ve come full circle over the last 5 to 7 years. We’ve always, historically layered digital over human content. And now, because of the innovation that’s come out of the pandemic, we’re doing the opposite – we’re layering humans over the digital.” – Jenny Hicks, Head of Technology at Midwich Group. This move is trending, as seen in the LinkedIn Live Events research2. The research concluded that in the future, around two-thirds of events were likely to have a virtual element. Most people prefer live events to virtual, but the hybrid model unlocks more content sharing possibilities and larger audiences. Incorporating live

and remote audiences can be challenging but there are different platforms and tools that help make the virtual audience feel included, and at the same time feed virtual engagement back to the physical audience. Broadcasters, production companies and live events specialists are continually looking at ways to increase productivity and reduce operating costs, without sacrificing quality. Remote and automated production helps them to do this and the advancements made in PTZ cameras in recent years have made them a vital piece of technology. NDI (Network Device Interface) enables PTZ cameras and other devices to operate in a live production system. NDI network protocol is commonly used in large broadcast environments but it’s making its way to smaller businesses and individual content creators. “ Phil Lane, VP of Sales EMEAR at BirdDog emphasises the adoption of NDI during the pandemic: Covid certainly hasn’t done the world any favours but it has really sped up the adoption of NDI workflows and NDI as a protocol in the marketplace. NDI allows for control of devices, capturing video feeds directly from the network to use in editing and “ defines a standard for encoding and decoding. Free to use, NDI facilitates the rise in broadcasting, making it accessible for most organisations. Live events and the broadcasting industry have shown resilience during the pandemic by taking advantage of the latest AV innovation. Creating engaging experiences for audiences and offering the benefits of quality content, AV delivers solutions that further elevate the growth of hybrid events and broadcasting.