On March 22, 2024, the NHL made history by producing its first game entirely from the cloud using NDI-based Vizrt solutions—marking the first time a major U.S. professional sports league relied exclusively on cloud production. Leveraging AWS’s robust infrastructure and the low-latency power of NDI, the NHL not only streamlined its operations but also set a new benchmark for innovation in sports broadcasting.
Panel featuring NDI, NHL, AWS, Verizon, and Vizrt at IBC 2024.
The NHL’s production team was confronted with the limitations of decades-old, hardware-bound broadcast trucks that stifled innovation and flexibility. With uncertainties surrounding regional sports networks and escalating production costs, the league needed a more agile, future-proof solution that could elevate fan engagement and operational efficiency.
We set out to really kick the tires on cloud broadcast. There were a lot of reasons, but some of them were the uncertainty surrounding regional sports networks in the United States and the desire to provide better content for our fans.
A further challenge was proving that high-quality, low-latency broadcast production could be achieved over mobile networks—a critical step in moving away from traditional, wired setups.
What we were doing was proving that you can do all of this with a mobile network. So all of the things that you would traditionally do over dedicated broadband, wired connections; we’re proving out that you could actually do this over the air.
In partnership with Vizrt and AWS—and with key support from Verizon—the NHL embraced an NDI-based cloud production model that reimagined live sports broadcasting.
Central to this solution was NDI’s ability to provide reliable, low-latency signal transport across both fixed and mobile networks, enabling production teams to operate from virtually anywhere and unlocking production switching in the cloud with minimum latency.
Key components included:
Mobile networks are ubiquitous in our buildings and also in other places that are not in our buildings. Being able to flex that same muscle on special events becomes really powerful.
A further challenge was proving that high-quality, low-latency broadcast production could be achieved over mobile networks—a critical step in moving away from traditional, wired setups.
Cloud workflow diagram courtesy of AWS. Learn more here.
By transitioning to an NDI-based cloud production environment, the NHL has set a new standard in live sports broadcasting. The results include:
This success story not only highlights the transformative impact of NDI but also illustrates how forward-thinking partnerships and state-of-the-art technology can revolutionize sports broadcasting for a new era.
The most important thing is evangelizing this to the actual production community—that this is not going to cause you problems; this is going to help you. You’re not going to complain anymore about not having enough replay channels in your trucks or needing more cross-converters. Now, you have the opportunity to be innovative.
Chess.com began with the idealistic vision of getting people excited about chess through online play and interviews with top players and experts.
For years, the team behind the platform used basic OBS setups to stream chess tournaments and events, but in 2022, they decided to build a full-scale media arm to cover chess tournaments using modern broadcasting techniques. They hired Mike Buetsch to serve as Director of Broadcast Engineering & Production, and he led a holistic review to identify their options and plan a production strategy.
We started off with the idea of building a physical studio, but we quickly moved away from that idea,” says Mike. “In the spirit of Chess.com as a fully remote company, we decided to create a completely remote broadcasting solution that lives entirely in the cloud.
Mike Buetsch, Director of Broadcast Engineering & Production
Mike and his team envisioned a virtual production workflow where employees in Europe, South Africa, India, and the United States could seamlessly collaborate. That meant every employee could work from their home office and access all the tools they’d find in a traditional broadcasting truck.
“That plan led us away from the all-in-one packaging that most cloud-native companies are currently trying to serve,” says Mike. “We found packages that offered switching audio comms, multi-viewing, and everything else, all in one device. They load it up and manage it for you, but we knew it wouldn’t be strong enough.”
These options fell short because Chess.com wouldn’t have one signal entering a single location to be distributed through a single application. They needed to distribute every signal across as many as 13 EC2s, relying entirely on AWS for cloud production.
“NDI made a lot of sense because it didn’t require us to manage so many transport destinations,” says Mike.
Mike and his team hired Advanced Systems Group (ASG) as their integration partner. Together, they began building what Mike calls a “virtual product truck” that could handle 80-120 NDI signals during a given match and numerous camera inputs (50+ cameras in some cases) from different camera types.
We asked ourselves how we could cover chess in a traditional sports manner while putting our own spin on it. We decided to build out workflows that let us show the game of chess how we wanted to show it, without having to tailor it to a truck or a flypack.
Mike Buetsch, Director of Broadcast Engineering & Production
The Chess.com team began with a proof of concept, starting with the switcher. Creating a test case by broadcasting a few shows with vMix in the cloud, they set up several vMix instances using NDI to transport the signals.
“We started with the switcher because we had a huge, 40+ camera count. That’s a lot of cameras for any production, so we had to figure out how to put that amount of cameras in the cloud. We explored so many solutions, from Ross to Grass Valley,” says Mike.
As their transmission needs grew, they quickly moved into the Zixi infrastructure. Once they validated their proof of concept, they started hiring a large staff of engineers and technical directors.
“We did all kinds of very small standups using vMix for cloud production, just to see if the solution worked, and we felt comfortable with it,” says Mike. “We needed to know if we could operate it how we wanted, so we tested it for a few months.”
The next iteration of the broadcast infrastructure involved delving deeply into the website’s API and working with the development team to create the appropriate toolsets. Once they had the infrastructure figured out, they managed to set up a fully personalized virtual production truck in just six weeks.
Trying to achieve as much cloud-nativity as possible, the infrastructure consisted of:
The team connected 18 intercom panels to each employee’s home and used Parsec for remote desktop management, allowing the crew to manage EC2s and software in the cloud. This allowed them to handle 100+ sources within their VCP on a regular basis, often taking in feeds from 30-50+ cameras for a given show.
Transporting all this data over NDI has proven incredibly valuable, especially since multiple systems need access to those signals.
Mike Buetsch, Director of Broadcast Engineering & Production
Thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of Mike’s team and the experts at ASG, Chess.com went from a simple OBS streaming setup to a media company that broadcasts more than 80% of the year, covering their own events as well as third-party events such as major chess tournaments.
A single event might use a variety of camera build-ups using Grass Valley or Sony cameras, PTZ cameras, and sometimes even POV cameras popular with eSports broadcasts. Mike recalls one event, the 2023 Champions Chess Tour Finals in Toronto, where they captured feeds from 26 cameras (at 30 MB each) that covered an on-site analyst desk and four separate matches simultaneously at any given time.
“We took all those isolated feeds and pushed them into a studio in Oslo, where they cut the show and weaved in live desk commentary during gameplay. There was a double set of transmission lines going out, on top of all the intercom connectivity and archiving we do,” says Mike.
What’s truly impressive is that Chess.com accomplished all this with a fully remote workforce. Today, they produce professional-quality broadcasts, with team members collaborating from their homes across continents. NDI allowed them to support their remote-first philosophy, which has been part of their culture since day one.
Chess.com’s future plans include more live-streaming content through faster platforms (as opposed to slower platforms like Twitch), moving to 10-bit signals, and pushing HDR video, which is now supported with NDI 6. They’re also exploring the flexibility of NDI and compatible technology to support the next iteration of their broadcast infrastructure.
We stood up our virtual production truck in about a month and a half. Anywhere else, that sounds insane, but we connected everything through cloud-based software and leveraging the flexibility of NDI.
Mike Buetsch, Director of Broadcast Engineering & Production
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