MONTREAL and CHICAGO – Bell Media has purchased Haivision’s Makito H.264 encoders and decoders for its broadcast backhaul and monitoring operations during coverage of sporting events at its CTV stations.
Bell Media purchased 35 Makito encoders and 22 Makito decoders. The low-latency inter-continental HD video pipeline established with the Makito’s and a dedicated fiber link is used by CTV in two ways. First, multiple HD video feeds from any given event location are encoded into H.264 and sent back to the CTV broadcast center in Toronto for incorporation with in-studio commentary for news pieces. Second, CTV establishes multiple return feeds to event locations so onsite production crews can have immediate and real-time access to other broadcast stations in their home region.
"CTV has been transferring unusually large amounts of video from remote locations this year, so we needed to ensure our broadcast backhaul operation could handle the demand with ease," said Andrews Marchisio, project lead at Bell Media. "Low-latency, high-performance encoding was crucial, which is why we chose Haivision. There's a very short list of companies that provide the level of latency we need, and when it comes to ultra-low latency for broadcast backhaul, Haivision is one of the best in the industry."
Makito’s line of encoders and decoders delivers up to 1080p60 HD H.264 video with 70 millisecond end-to-end latency with a feature set to address the advanced needs of multiuse streaming, IPTV, secure video distribution, and live media management.
"Broadcasters have a huge need for video transport across the globe outside of the traditional scope of contribution," said JoAnne Gaudreau, vice president of marketing at Haivision. "The Makito is widely accepted due to its specific price performance capabilities. The Makito helps broadcasters deliver a large complement of quality streams to decision makers throughout their organizations regardless of location."
