From Trackside to Global Fans: LiveU Transforms Tabcorp -Sky Racing Coverage Through Remote Production

Australia’s largest gambling company adopts LiveU’s cost-efficient IP workflow to deliver live racing action to sports fans around the world

LiveU, a leader in live IP-video and remote production solutions, today announced the successful implementation of its comprehensive IP remote production solution at Tabcorp – Sky Racing, transforming how Australia’s leading betting and entertainment company broadcasts live horse racing events. Sky Racing shares its live feeds with audiences worldwide, including viewers in Hong Kong, United States, and Europe.

Covering over 160,000 live horse races per year – broadcasting live on 150 channels on a huge range of formats (linear and digital) – Sky Racing also produces its own content. Using LiveU’s IP remote production solution, it now broadcasts horse races from eight tracks in Queensland (QLD) with high quality, low latency and resilient transmissions, managed from its central production hub in Brisbane. The remote production set-up has eliminated the need for traditional SNG trucks, Outside Broadcast trucks and full on-site crews, substantially reducing travel, accommodation, and equipment costs.

At its more remote locations Sky Racing has been able to reduce its costs by almost 80% by removing the whole satellite process and using LiveU. They’ve also reduced the need to send expensive OB trucks all over the state as they have moved to a model where they have designed a remote modular rack system with LiveU encoders installed in all their venues. The rack system can be turned on and tested remotely and from there the live feeds come directly into their centralized broadcasting hub. The production team can log in and support the system from anywhere in the world. Having a centralized hub has allowed further cost savings with certain staff being able to multitask between multiple venues (Director, CCU, Replay and Technicians for example).

“LiveU’s remote production solution has transformed how we deliver live races in Queensland for aggregation and distribution to our domestic and international markets,” said Jamie Ford, Technical Operations Manager – QLD, Tabcorp – Sky Racing. “By deploying their LU810 encoders across our tracks and using our production hub in Brisbane, we’ve achieved what was previously unthinkable – maintaining broadcast quality while significantly reducing operational costs and complexity. The system’s resilience and low latency, with seamless cellular backup and flexible return feeds, ensures we never miss a moment of action while maintaining the feeds needed in both directions.”

LiveU’s solution features LiveU’s multi-cam LU810 fixed encoders at each race track, supporting primary transmission of between 8 to 16 cameras (or other sources) per location, over high-speed WAN, sending up to four signals per device. For an extra layer of resilience, a cost-effective backup solution is in place using both LU810 encoders and separate LU810-M (modem) encoders connected via cellular. This set-up leverages the public internet for baseline reliability and can instantly switch to cellular if needed, removing the requirement for costly SNG backup trucks.

Production teams stay in sync between the field and the hub using LiveU’s remote production tools, including Video Return, Audio Connect, and IP Pipe. From the central production hub, teams can monitor up to 36 live camera feeds from eight different race tracks simultaneously with LiveU’s Transceiver letting operators customize and control return feeds for each track independently.

Ryan Osinga, Manager, Technical Services and Solutions, Tabcorp – Sky Racing, summed up, “We’ve ended up with a product that is cheaper, more reliable, and more resilient, it’s got more features, lower latency and we have a significant reduction in costs. For us the LiveU solution ticked every single box that we had.”

“Tabcorp went all-in on remote production for Sky Racing and we worked very closely with them to ensure that the solution was adapted to their production needs,” said Chris Dredge, Country & Sales Manager, LiveU Pacific. “The flexibility of the LiveU EcoSystem meant that we could devise an innovative workflow that worked for them, optimizing their resources on-the-ground and centrally. It’s a great use case for multi-venue events and we’re already seeing potential for similar projects elsewhere.”

See the full production in action: