NEW YORK and MEXICO CITY—Spanish-language media conglomerate TV Azteca has inked a two-year deal with WSC Sports for the AI-powered sports content technology provider to enhance the network’s content capabilities to maximize the viewer reach and engagement of its growing sports portfolio.

TV Azteca, which serves Mexico and Latin America, will rely on content solutions from WSC Sports to enhance content automation, vertical video and video push notifications for multiple sports properties, including Liga MX, México Selección Nacional games, Saudi Pro League, Liga Mexicana de Béisbol and Box Azteca, WSC Sports said.

The WSC Sports solution will enable TV Azteca to cut and publish sports content seamlessly, in real time, across all available digital channels. The solution will help TV Azteca increase fan engagement by delivering personalized experiences with their favorite teams and athletes, WSC Sports said.

“We’re excited to join forces with TV Azteca to amplify their incredible portfolio of content,” WSC Sports chief business development officer and co-founder Aviv Arnon said. “From the passion of Liga MX fans to the excitement of Azteca Box, our AI-powered technology will help deliver real-time, dynamic stories to fans across LATAM like never before. This partnership reflects our long-standing commitment to empowering broadcasters in the region with cutting-edge tools to engage their audiences.”

Founded in 1993, TV Azteca is one of the largest broadcasters in Latin America and Mexico. Owned by Grupo Salinas, it operates four national networks in Mexico and also owns stations in Guatemala and Honduras. The media conglomerate also owns a share of the Mexican TV rights to the FIFA World Cup, Copa América and CONCACAF Gold Cup.

“For [TV] Azteca Deportes, the most important thing is to provide the best services to our community, to deliver the best, clearest and most accurate information,” Azteca Deportes Director Rodolfo Ramírez said. “That is why we have found in WSC the best partner to deliver in time and form all the broadcasting rights we have. We seek excellence and we have found the partner that gives us that confidence and that will help us to continue serving our audiences and our communities with new and fresh content.

“You cannot be the No. 1 sports brand without the right partners and this will be the future of TV Azteca Deportes, delivering first-hand content with the best partners and maintaining our position as the number one brand in the Mexican market,” Ramírez added.

More information is available on the WSC Sports website.

The TV Azteca streaming schedule is available online.

ESPOO, Finland—Nokia recently completed a trial with Mexico’s TV Azteca that looked into video transmission uses with 5G standalone and edge computing. Among the things the trial was looking for was improvements in latency reduction and overall efficiency, flexibility and cost, Nokia said.

The trial used 100 MHz spectrum in 3.5 GHz frequency with Nokia 5G technology for core and radio access (RAN). TV Azteca tested the transfer of raw HD/4K video from cameras to its encoding server for the subsequent distribution without the need for additional infrastructure.

The tests showed that 5G connectivity enabled more agile camera deployment and repositioning during live events that can create a more dynamic viewing experience. It also showed how flexible video streaming can improve operations communication, security, fleeting monitoring and automation.

Other results showed the potential of new applications for TV coverage in areas like smart stadiums, as well as the ability to use edge computing platforms to host AR services or run event-related analytics. 

“5G technology has the potential to transform the broadcast industry, thanks to its reduced latency and cost benefits,” said Marcelo Entreconti, head of Enterprise, Latin America at Nokia. “This trial has shown that TV Azteca can transmit events live, in real time and without compromising quality, giving them a competitive advantage in the market and demonstrating the opportunities that come with embracing 5G.”

NEW YORK—Dalet recently supported Mexican-broadcaster TV Azteca’s effort to boost its content supply chain and delivery of programming via the Dalet Galaxy five. The Galaxy five platform assisted with the faster delivery of content across traditional, digital and social platforms.

With Dalet Galaxy five, TV Azteca is able to connect its production verticals, interweaving workflows from Programs, News, Sports, Archives and Marketing. Specifically, Dalet Galaxy five is able to automate entire file migration from transcoding to metadata capture, per Ivan Neri, TV Azteca’s CIO.

In addition to the Dalet Galaxy five, TV Azteca installed mobile and collaborative production tools from Dalet that included Dalet OneCut and Dalet WebSpace. Meanwhile, Dalet’s social media connectors enabled users to publish content to TV Azteca’s social channels.

Third-party consultants reported that the Dalet-powered media infrastructure reduced production inefficiencies by up to 30% across operations.

For more information, visit www.dalet.com. 

MOSCOW--Some technology-facing aspects of the 2018 World Cup were revealed Monday ahead of the soccer tournament's big kick off next Thursday (June 14) in Russia.

CenturyLink, which polished off its acquisition of Level 3 Communications last November said it will transmit live feeds from the tournament to top networks in the U.S. and Latin America, including Fox in the U.S., TV Azteca in Mexico, and RCN and Caracol in Columbia.

Those broadcasters, representing a subset of broadcasters in the region that will work with CenturyLink for the World Cup, will tap CenturyLink’s Vyvx Solutions to provide routes in the transmission of tournament and other World Cup content feeds from Moscow, Russia to each programmer’s master control facilities.

[Read: Telemundo Deportes Partners With Panini For World Cup AR Experience]

Fox Sports and IBM, meanwhile, said they will collaborate on an A.I. initiative across multiple Fox Sports programming for the World Cup. More specifically, Fox Sports will use IBM Watson Media’s A.I. video technology to streamline production workflows to rapidly classify, edit, and access match highlights in “near real-time,” they said.

That A.I.-facing capability will help Fox Sports curate “engaging” video clips and match highlights, the companies added. The collaboration will start with the launch of The Highlight Machine, an interactive experience developed by IBM’s iX unit that enables viewers to browse FIFA’s archive of past matches and to create custom highlights by year, team, player, and play type.

Back to CenturyLink’s involvement, the company has been working closely with local telecoms in Russia and the International Broadcast Center that puts together the source feeds for the broadcasters, Bill Wohnoutka, vice president of global internet and content delivery services for CenturyLink, explained, noting that CenturyLink will work with its broadcast partners to deliver content in multiple formats, including standard- and high-definition as well as 4K.

In addition to transmission, CenturyLink’s Vyvx platform will also handle encoding, decoding, onsite operations, monitoring, and frame-rate conversion.

Getting those logistics lined up alongside the security requirements present some of the big challenges around this year’s World Cup, as “it’s pretty complicated to get content out of Russia, Wohnoutka added.

Among the group of broadcasters working with CenturyLink for the World Cup, Fox’s networks are on tap to broadcast 64 matches live, more than the previous four tournaments combined, and the most-ever for an English-language network, Keith Goldberg, VP of global operations and transmission services for Fox, noted in the release.

“That’s more than 350 hours of total programming, and CenturyLink will play a critical role in enabling us to deliver that content to millions of viewers across the U.S.,” Goldberg added.

Update: Fox Sports also announced details for its FIFA World Cup Hub, which will provide live streams and full replays of the aforementioned 64 matches, as well as access to bonus feeds (including “team channels”), commentary, rosters, stats and highlights. Following similar work done during last season’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, Fox Sports said it will again team with LiveLike on a social VR offering that features a digital suite and three, multi-angle feeds from each match.

Fox Sports noted that its World Cup Hub will provide access to digital content across FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports App.

Fox Sports said adidas is the presenting sponsor for the Fox Sports streaming effort across digital platforms for the entire tournament. Coca-Cola is on board to sponsor the short-form 90 in 90 match highlights. Coca-Cola and adidas are co-sponsoring the Team Channels feature.