This technological development for live television transmission from remote locations is also being harnessed by other sectors: to control mobility in cities and for military intelligence.
By Richard Santa
The television industry has a new technological development that facilitates the transmission of live and live images from anywhere and without having to use large traditional devices.
The LiveU is a device that fulfills the same function of a microwave: it transmits live video from a specific point to a point where its server is located, that is, a receiving computer with the technical specifications and the necessary software and from there transmit it live or save it.
But how does it work? Luis Oswaldo Fajardo, LiveU's representative for Colombia, explained that it can have up to 12 modems equal to those used for the Internet in laptops. This allows to join the bandwidths that are used in one, normally six are used.
When the camera is connected to the equipment and begins to record, the information is immediately transmitted in parallel via cell phone antennas by data, from there it goes to the Internet and reaches the receiving computer in which the software processes it.
To give an example, in the case of Colombia where there are three cell phone operators, you can connect two modems from Tigo, two from Comcel and two from Movistar, you can also add WIFI networks, Wimax, and LAN lines, so you would have a large bandwidth, which translates into a better quality of the image transmitted live.
This means that the LiveU always has a signal for the transmission of the images, depending on the area it identifies them and if an operator has a bad signal in the place, it continues to be connected to the others optimizing the server.
At the time of the transmission of the images, of running out of signal because you are in a remote place, the process is suspended but what has been done so far is not lost, when the signal is recovered the sending is resumed from the point where it was going and the software of the receiving computer joins the images.
Luis Oswaldo Fajardo stressed that its size and weight facilitate mobility. It is a lightweight equipment that does not exceed 7 kilos, less than half of a professional camera that weighs 15 kilos, it also comes in a briefcase that allows it to be outdoors.
That's one of the advantages over microwaves and mobiles used for live streaming, because you need less infrastructure to transport and operate it. Traditional equipment requires a trolley, a transmitter that must be directed directly to the antenna of the receiving medium and even operators, while the LiveU allows you to do it from any means of transport, even in motion.
Their mobility is also favored by their way of supplying themselves with energy. It works through batteries that can be recharged by connecting them to cars as if it were a cell phone. And it has had adaptations as in Mexico, which modified it so that it could be charged with the batteries of the motorcycles.
The use of the Internet for data transmission allows live events to be broadcast directly through a website, which is not achieved with another type of transmission.
International acceptance
The LiveU has achieved a worldwide presence after being launched in March 2010. But in its development they had been working since 2006 in Israel, a country that is recognized for its high technological advancement.
Luis Oswaldo Fajardo says that the equipment is a completely new development and that its creators started from watching the live broadcasts of the television channels using a cell phone, which resulted in an image with poor quality, hence the idea of expanding the bandwidth to improve the image.
The tests of the equipment were carried out accompanying the campaign for the presidency of the United States of Barack Obama.
In fact there is an anecdote that the representative of LiveU in Colombia tells and that is that during the last days of the campaign, Obama was with a group of journalists broadcasting live for television and decided to leave the place where they were by train. The only journalist who was able to accompany him broadcasting live was the one with the team.
This device is being used by television channels in Israel, in most countries of the European continent and in America, passing through the United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia and Brazil. In total there are 40 countries that have this new technology.
The best known channels that today work with LiveU are CNN, BBC, Univision, CBS, Televisa, Fox News, TVN, among others. But it is not only being used for television, but also as an aid to control mobility.
In places where a camera needs to be located but there is no way to carry fiber optic cables, the equipment connected to the camera and a power supply are installed.
It is also being used in military forces for intelligence operations in armies of several countries.
Operation difficulties
One of the difficulties faced by LiveU in its operation, according to Luis Oswaldo Fajardo, is that when making sudden movements the image can be pixelated and that is why many producers and newscasts prefer to continue making false directs than risk a little in the quality of the image.
With the LiveU it is sought that they are made direct of truth and do not deceive the people, in addition to prioritizing the news over the image.
He added that "The issue of pixelation is according to the quality of the image and the time of transmission, if it takes 5 to 10 seconds it will have a very good quality image and that time can be corrected from the studio, but that is what many people do not understand."
It has also faced a cultural barrier, because middle people think you can't replace a microwave unit with such a small appliance.
So far, the LiveU is available in SD, but the company began production of the HD60 reference, which will have an antenna that will allow it to have greater capacity to obtain the signal from cellular operators without affecting its main condition: mobility and improving transmission conditions.
In addition, it will have resolutions 1,080 and 60, 720 P60 and 720 P30, added to those of the LU30 model, which is available today, which are the VGA, D1 and SIF.
Business Model
The LiveU is not available for sale. The company established rental as its business model, in order to guarantee that users will always have the latest technology system.
In addition, this prevents the user from losing work time when the equipment has some damage or requires maintenance, because it will immediately be replaced.
The cost per month of the LiveU rental ranges from US$4,000 to US$5,000, depending on the characteristics of the contract and the country where it is located.
To facilitate the coverage of special events, the company rents it for weeks and thus take advantage of another of its characteristics that differentiates it from a microwave, and that is that up to 5 units can be used transmitting at the same time for the same receiver.
