WATERLOO, ONTARIO--Canadian media provider Global News and Entertainment Tonight (ET) Canada relied on Dejero’s CellSat video over IP transport solution to ensure reliable, high-quality live coverage of last month's wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to a global audience topping three million viewers. CellSat seamlessly blends cellular and Ku-band IP satellite connectivity. Global Television’s Global News and ET Canada are part of the Corus Entertainment multi-platform, multimedia enterprise.

On the day of the wedding, Global provided seven total hours of live on-location coverage, while ET Canada’s Cheryl Hickey and Sangita Patel delivered special live reports of pre- and post-event activities during the week of the wedding. Since then, Global News’ and ET Canada‘s Royal Wedding content accessed via YouTube reached more than six million unique viewers, while full ceremony replay achieved more than 1.8 million views.   

CellSat is the result of a technology partnership between Dejero, a provider of cloud-managed video transport and Internet connectivity, and Intelsat, a provider of integrated satellite communications services. CellSat seamlessly blends Dejero’s bonded cellular from multiple mobile network carriers with Intelsat’s Ku-band IP satellite connectivity to provide sufficient bandwidth to reliably deliver live, broadcast quality video while on location.

[Read Dejero And Intelsat Partner On Video Transmission Solution]

According to Dejero Founder Bogdan Frusina, CellSat gives broadcasters covering a significant event, like The Royal Wedding from Windsor, England, “A high degree of confidence that their live feeds will transmit without fail.” This is because CellSat solves the technical challenges caused by cellular network congestion and/or the lack of available fiber connectivity.

Mark Blanchard, Manager, Network Resources at Global News added, “Time and resources are extremely limited in a high-profile event like The Royal Wedding. Our crews need to be able to do their jobs quickly and easily without having to worry about technical complications.”

Blanchard continued, “Using CellSat to blend cellular and satellite enabled us to take advantage of the strengths of both transmission technologies and deliver exceptional coverage of the Royal Wedding with little stress or technical issues.”

LONDON — An estimated two billion people worldwide watched “The Royal Wedding” of Britain’s Prince Harry and American Meghan Markle, which was broadcast live, on Saturday, May 19, from St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle.

During the historic weekend, The Switch — a provider of video switching, satellite and local fiber circuit services — worked behind the scenes to transmit over 200 hours of news and entertainment coverage on behalf of its broadcast customers covering the event.

These broadcasters were given access to a fully-manned stand-up position that The Switch set-up at Windsor Castle, in partnership with ITN. From this location, members of the media could hand off live and replay feeds for distribution by The Switch’s London facilities.

[Read: NAB Show — The Switch to Highlight Video Transmission Services Platform]

The Switch then delivered these feeds to multiple distribution outlets across the United Kingdom, as well as internationally to the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia for both linear distribution and over-the-top platforms.

The Switch’s London studios were also utilized for live shots supporting the event.

And, leveraging its ties with the British broadcast community, The Switch also provided The Royal Wedding International clean feed to news organizations that had licensed the event.

“Utilizing The Switch to aid in the distribution of our news coverage allowed us to simplify one piece of a complex event,” said Tami Hoffman, Head of News at ITN Productions. “As one of the three host broadcasters, we appreciate the quality and ease of delivering news coverage to The Switch on a day of record output.”

[Want more information like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox.]

WATFORD, UK—Live broadcast specialist BSI deployed its UHD RF cameras to cover the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, in particular the overhead camera which captured the aerial views of the Windsor Long Walk and cameras by the Victoria Barracks and roadside.

The Royal Wedding was shot in full 4K UHD, with a huge media presence of around 8,000 members of the media and 100 cameras were in Windsor on the day of the event. The overhead feeds were picked up by a variety of worldwide broadcasters, including Sky News.

BSI provided three BSI UHD Real Freedom RF Camera systems with integrated UHF camera control. The setup included data transmitters at every receive point to enable camera control and remote control of the link path, so that the RF transmission could be adjusted as the conditions changed.

One of BSI’s Real Freedom systems was mounted overhead on a 44 meter crane, and was used to get the iconic wide views of the Windsor Long Walk as the procession made its way to Windsor Castle, while the other two Real Freedom camera systems were used on a tripod and on a Jimmy Jib.

“The sheer amount of ENG and RF equipment in the area, with crowds of onlookers and security created some challenges,” said Tony Valentino, managing director for BSI UK. “Once the cameras were in position, we had limited access to adjust them, so our ability to control the link path remotely was invaluable. Thanks to our R&D teams, the BSI Real Freedom proved itself once again and performed faultlessly.”

“We were completely happy with BSI’s Real Freedom systems,” said Tony Cahalane, who worked closely to Steve Williams, the Sky Engineering Manager. “There was no interruption or break up from them—everything went perfectly to plan, and the ability to manipulate settings on the transmitter remotely was imperative to the success of what was an iconic shot from this prestigious event!”

Broadcast Sports International, BSI, is a leading provider of wireless cameras, and other special cameras such as roof-mounted cameras, goal cameras, ref-cams, and wireless microphones originally designed for sports broadcast. 

An estimated 29.2 million Americans woke up early Saturday morning to see TV actress Meghan Markle marry Britain’s Prince Harry, according to Nielsen.

The total topped the last royal wedding, when Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011. That event drew 22.8 million viewers.

Back when Princess Diana married Prince Charles, Nielsen only counted households. That 1981 wedding was watched in 14.2 million households on the three networks available. The latest royal wedding was seen in 23.7 million homes.

Nielsen’s total includes viewing between 7 a.m. and 8:15 am ET on : ABC (inclusive of Freeform simulcast), BBC America, CBS, CNN, CNNe, E!, Fox News Channel, HLN, MSNBC, NBC, PBS, Telemundo, TLC and Univision.

On cable, Fox News Channel’s coverage drew nearly 2 million total veiwers, topping 1.92 for CNN and 1.01 for MSNBC. In the key news demo of adults 25-54, CNN was tops with 650,000 versus 416,000 for Fox News and 234,000 for MSNBC. CNN also led in young adults 18 to 34 with 125,000.

LONDON--As guests arrive at the Royal Wedding on May 19, Sky News will be using machine learning technology provided by Amazon Web Services and two partners to name guests and provide additional background.

Fans will be able to access the ‘Royal Wedding: Who’s Who Live’ via the Sky News app or via skynews.com. The technology enabling this enhanced user experience and deliver this service at scale, is being provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and two AWS technology partners, GrayMeta and UI Centric. 

As guests make their way into St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, AWS will capture live video and send it to cloud-based AWS Elemental Media Services for multiscreen viewing optimization. An on-demand video asset, including catch-up functionality, will also be generated. In parallel, Sky is combining the GrayMeta data analysis platform with the Amazon Rekognition video and image analysis service for real-time identification of guests and tagging with related information.

[Read: AWS Elemental Launches Media Services]

Finally, Sky News is using the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network to unify the content for rapid distribution to viewers. UI Centric has designed and developed the front-end application and video player to enhance the experience and user interface accessed by Sky News viewers.

Keith Wymbs, chief marketing officer for AWS Elemental, the video division from Amazon providing the encoding and cloud services for the event, said that AWS has a long relationship with Sky, adding that the capability will give Sky some insight into the capabilities of machine learning.

“It’s really a way to explore what we can do in a more nimble environment where we don’t have to provide a traditional workflow where you’re bolting servers into a rack and dealing with all the related hardware,” he said. “This gives Sky an understanding for exactly how much demand is going to be there so they can do a lot more experimentation and be first to market with things that are exciting for the end user.”

Video content from the application will also be made available on demand after the event.