GREEN-GO BridgeX

…extends Gameday Hire’s remote production capability

Broadcast and streaming rental specialist Gameday Hire has expanded its GREEN-GO setup by investing in a BridgeX quad network bridge interface, enhancing its remote production capabilities.

The Sydney-based company, headed up by Australian broadcast industry veteran Andy Liell, has heavily invested in GREEN-GO products over the last year with support from Rod McKinnon at Event Communications Australia. Gameday Hire’s team travels across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, often delivering outside broadcast technology in remote locations that require rock solid communications. Incorporating the BridgeX into their existing, extensive GREEN-GO comms system means that the company can massively improve comms for their remote production solutions.

One such project Gameday Hire provides ongoing solutions for is an Australian sporting code. With three control rooms and multiple LiveU based field production kits around the country, the Gameday Hire facility covers up to 8 x 3 camera matches per week, which are broadcast live on a major streaming platform. The facility was built around GREEN-GO comms using Dante interfaces for local commentary and 4 Wire interface carried over LiveU for the remote camera comms.

“When we worked on Season 1, we only required a single 4Wire feed to the remote site for the camera operators, handled by the LiveU,” explains Andy. “With the move to having the commentators on-site, we now needed to provide the camera comms and at least two additional comms channels for the commentators. As this exceeded the LiveU capability, we tested the BridgeX as a natural extension to our existing GREEN- GO infrastructure. The BridgeX seamlessly connected to four remote GREEN-GO crosspoints using a 5G modem. I was really pleased to find that not only was the GREEN- GO implementation very reliable, but also that the audio quality was as good as if we were on the local network in the studio.”

The BridgeX solution is essentially ‘plug and play’ once configured. Standard GREEN-GO devices are switched into an “Online” mode and establish a connection over public internet back to the BridgeX. Latency varies between 400-800ms from studio to remote, which the team says is very manageable for this application.

BridgeX also enables the use of the GREEN- GO app, which turns Android/iOS devices into a mobile GREEN-GO user. While not being used in this application, Gameday Hire tested the app thoroughly for future applications and report that they found it to be very user-friendly, with the great audio quality they experience in all their GREEN-GO systems.

“We couldn’t be happier with this solution,” adds Liell. “It further justifies our investment in GREEN-GO comms for our business. I’d also like to mention that the support from their Australian distributor Event Communications is always first class. Thanks to the two Rods, Liam and the team.”

The BridgeX is now working alongside Gameday Hire’s multiple GREEN-GO MCX Multi-Channel Rack and MCX-D Multi-Channel Desk Stations, Dante interfaces and GREEN- GO Slim Audio Interface 4 Wire devices, as well as multiple GREEN-GO Wireless Beltpacks and Antennas.