Powering Asia’s First Remote Esports Hub: TJ Sports & TSL Control in Action

Challenges

Compared with other sports, eSports broadcasting is unique as it is divided into two arenas, one in the real event venue and the other in a virtual gaming server. Electric competitions use not only live shooting cameras like in traditional sports but also OB servers for shooting virtual arenas. Operated by the game director (Observer), it takes “shots” of an in-game arena and even playback slow-motions of killing moments. The director and program director of the eSports event need to control the dynamics and pictures in both arenas at the same time in the broadcast.

ESports broadcasting has to capture lots of PC signals used as core signals for eSports broadcasting. eSports broadcasting’s biggest difference from traditional sports broadcasting is that the number of production signals are huge, and among them, a lot of signal sources do not exist in traditional sports.

“TSL is always ready to listen to us and make timely responses with product adjustments and program design customized to our special needs,” Mr. Zhang said. “We exchange ideas and brainstorm together. Through discussion, we figure out some fantastic ideas combining each other’s strength. Finally, we come up with a sophisticated technical solution.”

In a few words, TSL centralised control system successfully accomplishes the management of large-scale video switchers, AV matrix, and even larger audio mixers. It enables technicians to overcome the challenge of planning and scheduling larger-scale signal sources, as well as resource allocation and centralised management for multi-project remote production. The centralisation and humanisation character of TSL Tallyman control system has also become the underlying element of system management.

Solution

TSL’s TM1 MK2+ plays the important role of centralised control in the TJ Sports Broadcast Production Centre. It fully meets up the needs of the production centre, and has successfully accomplished off-site control of remote network production in major international events.

The Systems:

• Hosts centralised scheduling and control of the overall signal in the entire studio complex, including 5 studios, 5 control rooms, and the core server room.
• Carries out the centralised Tally management of studios and control rooms by flexible matching and resource allocation.
• Handles some personalised items throughout the broadcast process, especially the signal scheduling pre-set, which helps operators reduce operating time while making the operation very variable.

“The TSL centralised control system enables the production centre to organise the entries according to individual conditions,” Zhang emphasised. “If it’s not sorted out, it’s very painful for technicians to deal with it later. If you are doing a local event and need to switch venues, it usually takes about a week or so.”

He added, “TSL enables us to carry more events that are more intensive and more complex. It does so through a certain amount of advanced setup. It actually reduces risk at the execution phase while improving the humanised operating process. If it takes 10 steps to do one thing, for instance, I can set these 10 steps in advance in the system and save it into a key. For the operator, you just press the key and everything is done, at the click of a button. But behind the scenes, all 10 steps are executed.”

Due to the pandemic outbreak in 2020, remote production of eSports has become increasingly important. With the help of TSL, TJ Sports did an excellent job of remotely producing the 2020 League of Heroes Mid-Season Cup (MSC) through innovative means and efficient team collaboration.

The competition attracted eight professional teams from the Chinese LPL and South Korea’s LCK. It was the world’s first remote production event to be broadcast in venues across different countries. “In a stable production centre, TSL is able to hide the complexity of the underlying system so that operators can always focus on producing great content, implementing ways or programming patterns beyond imagination in the past,” Zhang said.

Using Soft Panels

In addition, the TallyMan soft panel provides a complete software control interface with an intuitive editor that allows for multi-page configuration, making it easy to access, configure, and edit.

“TSL’s PC-based soft panel intelligently draws a two-story floor-based floor plan across the entire production centre into TMVP. This graphical interface allows it to be operated by many people who don’t know much about the entire system, and somehow lowers the threshold for its operators. After all, senior personnel are limited in every company,” said Zhang. “The TSL system has been really stable. It’s been running for two years, and so far I haven’t had any problem with TSL equipment.”

Phase II

“TJ Sports Broadcast Production Centre is now undergoing the second phase of construction, and we’re sticking to TSL. TJ Sports Broadcast Production Centre Phase II will abandon the traditional baseband infrastructure by getting rid of the concept of studio and control room clusters.

Instead, it will implement an IP-based production island cluster, connecting via ST2110 signal delivery. We’ll see what TSL is capable of managing thousands by thousands of AV matrices,” Zhang concluded. “We’re going to give full play of the innovative spirit of eSports and work with TSL to pioneer this world-leading cluster.”