Caton Delivers Live Viewing Experience of the Olympic Games

In the current landscape, media producers are constantly looking for innovative ways to deliver real-time high quality live broadcasts to their viewers at anytime and anywhere.

This is in response to the growing consumption and demand of live media from consumers. In today’s reality, consumers expect live events to be broadcast at real-time and at a high quality but without higher tariffs. 

As a result, content providers and media companies are constantly facing the pressure of delivering live events and field event reporting to create the immersive viewing experience for their audiences, while keeping operational costs down.

During the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games event, Caton was selected by Momenta as the solution and service partner to deliver high quality, low latency content to live video platforms such as Migu, Tencent Video, Kuai Shou and many more. In order to deliver high-quality live streaming of the games to its viewers in Beijing, Momenta selected the CatonNet Video Platform (CVP) with the industry-leading Caton Transport Protocols (CTP) to deliver video transmissions that are assured with high quality, performance and reliability. In addition to mitigating the issues that typically arise from bandwidth challenges, the CVP and CTP solution resulted in lower operating costs while enhancing the user experience of Momenta’s viewers.

The Requirement

1. Multi-perspective content transmission: multi-terminals connection, including field reporting teams, Main Press Centre (MPC) and mobile vehicle studios for a comprehensive presentation of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

2. Monitor and control the quality of transmissions: technical expertise in managing the distributed devices and end-to end transmission process for efficiency and stability.

3. High-quality real-time broadcast over IP: provision for a setup that delivers high performance, unparalleled speed and reliable trans-national streams back to Beijing.

The Solution

Caton and China Unicom jointly designed an integrated solution to securely and reliably transmit live HD video from Tokyo to Beijing:

1. Recognizing the need to supplement the broadcasting teams with agility and efficiency, Caton mobile encoders (Live Cast Pro) were deployed in Tokyo to provide real-time HD video transmission through multiple 4G networks. The additional features that come with Caton mobile encoders, such as multiple network bonding and inbuilt Cydex client (designed for fast file transfer), provided the broadcasting teams with extra speed in file transfers and network high availability in all transmissions.

2. To enhance the transmission performance from Tokyo to Beijing, all Caton encoders and the SVN platform provided by China Unicom were connected to CatonNet Video Platform, a global network managed service powered by Caton Transport Protocols (CTP). With over 30 algorithms in-built, CTP leverages deep learning approaches that work to smooth and mitigate network challenges, coupled with patented dynamic error corrections to recover from data loss. As a result, the quality and performance of the received transmission to Caton decoders situated in Beijing were significantly improved. This specially designed transmission eco-system was secure, stable, and high performing, with active remote monitoring and management of network status by Caton technical support team.

3. To facilitate workflow efficiency, Caton deployed Cydex, an enterprise-class file transfer management platform. Journalists were able to use Cydex to transport large files during the event. Powered by Caton Transport Protocols (CTP), Cydex breaks through the traditional bottlenecks in sending large files, even in the most challenging networks, without compromising on security.

After several months of multi-party cooperation, Caton withstood varying degrees of tests in relation to technical support, operation and maintenance, as well as management and service capabilities, to fulfil all of the customer’s requirements.

Relevant Caton products:

1. Caton Live Cast Pro: Mobile encoder that supports real-time video transmission from both, mobile shooting scenes and fixed studio scenes.
2. Caton IVP-3000 Caton: IVP-3000 video decoder is a compact 1RU broadcast transmission platform designed by Caton Technology. Equipped with 6 modular slots, the IVP-3000 is fully customizable with the different modules to meet your existing workflow needs.
3. Cydex Managed Fast File Transfer: Cydex is an enterprise-class file transfer management platform based on the Caton Transfer Protocols (CTP). With accelerated transmission speeds that are significantly faster than traditional solutions, Cydex breaks through the traditional bottlenecks in sending large files, even in the most challenging networks, without compromising on security.
4. Caton Transport Protocols (CTP): Seamlessly adapt to the challenges caused by jitter and network congestion, ensuring stability, high quality, low latency and security. CTP continues to be the chosen technology for business applications ranging from live coverage of world-class sports games to real-time telemedicine consultations. Beyond video, enterprises and service providers are leveraging CTP for fast file/data transfer, enjoying transfer speeds that are significantly faster than traditional solutions.
5. CatonNet Video Platform (CVP): Provides broadcast grade media transmission services with presence in over 60 countries worldwide. Powered by Caton Transport Protocols (CTP), CVP delivers a highly available, low latency and secure service ensuring your video can be transmitted and received without compromising on quality or speed.