The University has built a professional-grade esports production facility for students with opportunities for hands-on experience using modern SDI/IP broadcast gear from EVS.
The University of Staffordshire has become the first university in the UK to run a dedicated esports program by expanding the scope and range of its facility with a modernised, professional esports arena and studio. Built bytechnology partners Digital Garage, the production environment has been designed to industry standards in order to equip students with practical, transferable skills for careers in esports, and in live broadcasting more generally.
The goal of this project was a professional-grade esports production facility for University of Staffordshire students, with opportunities for hands-on experience with up to date broadcast technology. Digital Garage has created an environment that gives the students an advantage and prepares them for the fast-evolving esports industry.
Professional Esports Arena
One of the biggest challenges was ensuring flexibility across the facility’s two galleries, arena and studio, while staying within budget and maintaining a simple to use interface. To achieve this goal, equipment at the foundation of the studio was chosen carefully and largely sourced from EVS. For instance, they have been able to invest in a single XT-GO live production replay server to manage inputs and outputs across both galleries, which has improved the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the workflow.
Neuron Bridge is a gateway used to bridge (or transition) and synchronise SDI camera feeds from the esports arena and smaller studio to SMPTE 2110. While SDI combines video, audio and metadata into a single stream, SMPTE ST 2110 carries those components as independent streams, creating opportunities to optimise network bandwidth and simplify data and media management. In particular, this step eases integration with EVS LSM-VIA replay and highlights systems in each gallery.
Finally, EVS’s Cerebrum broadcast control and monitoring system functions as the central hub, managing the signal routing across the entire setup.
The Learning and Working Environment
Philip Cooke, Interim Course Director, notes that Esports is growing massively. “Having studios like this in educational settings really helps us keep our teaching at the necessary level for students. We take segments of the industry such as broadcasting, but also event management, coaching, team management, community management – all of that backend side of esports – to make sure the students fully understand the sector," he said.
Don Li, a student on the E-sports Course, appreciates the exposure the course has given him to a range of tasks that help him learn what the industry is like and, on top of that, to aspects that relate to broadcast that he finds extremely interesting.
Originally, the space currently dedicated to the arena was a more generic teaching department. Mike Whelan, Founder of Digital Garage, worked out with the client their aspirations for the facility, and the role it would take for the students.
Chistopher Leese, Technical Specialist at the University, said, “Video over IP was something we were already used to, but a key outcome for us was making sure the studio reflects current industry practice. We were aware of EVS and SMPTE ST 2110 but we didn't think we could achieve those standards at the time."
I/O, Routing and Managing
Mike Whelan commented that despite Digital Garage’s long experience with the EVS XT range, it was interesting to discover that they could use the single XT-GO server in a multi-space environment by dividing the inputs and outputs across the studio’s two galleries. “This made quite a difference, not only from the technology integration perspective but also from a budgetary point of view – only having to buy one rather than two,” he said.
Tom Gill, Lead Systems Engineer from Digital Garage, described the flexibility of this EVS Cerebrum, Neuron, XT set-up. He said, “We were able to share the main hub of the XT-GO across both galleries and switch the inputs and outputs depending on the show requirements. We have the IP Director asset management and EVS Neuron processor as the heart of the facility where all the SDI video gets turned to 2110 and back again and feeds into the vision mixers.”
All baseband video ins and outs go through the Neuron unit. Cerebrum, functioning here as a router, then manages the Neuron while also managing all of the other routing and signal path management as well as nearly every other aspect within the facility.
Mike Whelan said, “We didn't just want this to be a bit LIKE a professional esports Arena – we wanted it to actually BE a professional esports arena.” Therefore the department were keen, despite their own lack of experience, to introduce equipment like LSM-VIA that they knew were commonplace in real-world environments. The EVS training they received from Digital Garage, who could also refer to freelancers familiar with LSM systems, gave them confidence to explore different options.
Don Li and students like him find using the EVS servers and other gear to be really fun. “It's something that I'm looking forward to learning more about and making it a possible future career path for me.” evs.com
