PSSI Expands Scope, Distance Of REMI Productions

The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s The Road to UFC 2 in Shanghai, China, was produced live from Las Vegas last month from 24 camera feeds acquired via remote integration through transmission services provided by PSSI Global Services, a live event management, transmission, production and connectivity provider serving clients around the globe.

According to PSSI, “the scale and distance of the event represent a significant expansion of the remote production model, demonstrating that PSSI can help clients of any size expand globally without compromising production quality and reliability. The REMI production model enabled UFC and its production partner, ConCom, to reduce its production footprint by providing an alternative to traveling overseas with an entire production team.”

PSSI sent its newly acquired Appear media processing and delivery equipment and two senior engineers to Shanghai to facilitate this broadcast. Appear’s X Platform enabled high-density HEVC encoding/decoding for the event, converting 24 HD camera signals and 8 return feeds into high-quality HEVC, low-latency transport signals. PSSI turned to Telstra to provide one gigabyte of data for the event via their Special Events Network, as well as an IT interface for remote engineering. PSSI also engaged Nextologies to design multiple payload data tunnels for comms, scoring, and camera tallies between the Shanghai Media Group facility and UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

While the REMI production model is nothing new — PSSI was among the first transmission providers to provide multi-camera REMI contributions for U.S. broadcasters, which is now common practice — the scale of The Road to UFC 2 represents a significant expansion of the scope, complexity and distance involved in REMI events.

“A college football game as a 10-channel REMI is now part of the weekly repertoire in the US, but we are pushing the boundaries with scale and distance,” said Garrett Hunt, who leads PSSI’s project management team. “UFC is the perfect partner for this initial venture because their global reach is so expansive. Our work in Shanghai and Vegas shows there’s no corner of the world we can’t reach to produce a world-class show with fewer boots on the ground than ever before.”