LiveU has unveiled details of its work to support CRD Audiovisuel in delivering live content from the start of the 2026 men’s and women’s Tour de France.

Working with the organiser of the annual cycle race, CRD Audiovisuel had to overcome issues with fluctuating connectivity to provide live paddock shots, behind-the-scenes coverage, interviews and more from locations that have previously presented difficulties.

Key objectives for the project included ensuring reliable connectivity at each race start, a plug-and-play setup that avoided heavy RF infrastructure, strong enough bitrate to ensure broadcast-quality output and a simple intercom system.

Featuring LIQ, LiveU’s AI-driven intelligent connectivity software to manage eSIM cards, LiveU’s LU900Q was deployed, with each unit connected to the strongest available network based on its location. The solution provided CRD Audiovisuel with reliable performance across congested or saturated network environments, said the company. Using only public 4G/5G networks, the LU900Q provided 99.9 per cent of connectivity needs across the men’s and women’s races.

Stéphane Reibre, MD at CRD Audiovisuel, said, “I could never have imagined that LU900Q and LIQ would perform so well in the field. We had exactly zero problems, which, in this specific context, is a small miracle. If you’ve ever covered a Tour, you know what I mean.”

“The trust Stéphane has shown in our teams and our technology honours us,” added Philippe Gaudion, LiveU’s regional sales manager for France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. “We supported him as closely as possible to contribute to the success of his project, and we are all very proud and happy about it.”

Every year at NAB, the conversation centers on what's new at the production layer, cameras, switchers, encoders, cloud playout. And every year, connectivity is treated as the assumed foundation: the thing that's supposed to just work so everything else can shine.

That assumption is costing broadcasters.

The broadcast industry has spent a decade investing in software-defined workflows, IP infrastructure and cloud-native production architectures, and yet many organizations are still routing that chain over connectivity infrastructure that hasn't kept pace. The weakest link isn't the switcher or the encoder. It's often the network path between the field and air.

This is the problem the Field to Air demonstration at NAB 2026 was designed to expose, and solve, in plain view on the show floor.

What "Field to Air" Actually Is
Field to Air is a live, end-to-end broadcast workflow running in real time with six production partners: Dejero, Eutelsat, Ross Video, Matrox Video, Clear-Com, GlobalM and Cuez. Everything is live, connected, and dependent on the reliability of the network beneath it.

When you build a workflow with the network at the center, the production chain changes character. Redundancy is built in, not bolted on. Failover becomes invisible. The field-to-air chain stops being a series of fragile handoffs and becomes a single, resilient system.

The Hidden Cost of "Good Enough" Connectivity
Bonded cellular was a meaningful step forward, but bonded cellular is not the same as intelligent network blending. Where bonded approaches aggregate paths and switch when one fails, intelligent blending simultaneously uses all available connections, cellular, satellite, Wi-Fi, fixed-line, weighting each dynamically based on real-time conditions. Eutelsat's OneWeb LEO constellation extends into locations where terrestrial networks are unavailable or under stress.

The practical effect is a connectivity layer that actively maintains signal quality rather than reacting after degradation occurs. For live production teams, that's the difference between infrastructure they can plan around and infrastructure they're constantly compensating for.

A Question Worth Asking
Have we been building sophisticated production architectures on a connectivity foundation that isn't ready to carry them? In too many cases, the honest answer is yes.

The story doesn't start when the camera goes up. It starts when the network is ready.

HACKETTSTOWN, N.J.—Vislink and Aeroshot Productions are teaming up. Through a newly agreed upon strategic partnership, Vislink will serve as the exclusive HD and 4K UHD wireless technology hardware and innovation provider to give Aeroshot’s specialized camera products wireless video, audio and data connectivity.

Aeroshot’s provides its all-in-one, gyro-stabilized wireless cameras, which are available as production rental equipment, to Extreme Camera Systems and its EX250 and EX300 4K HDR products. As part of this new agreement, Extreme Camera Systems will purchase Vislink wireless technology for its cameras, which will then make up Aeroshot’s rental fleet.

The partnership between Vislink and Aeroshot calls for Vislink to promote the Aeroshot rental model. Vislink also has exclusive rights to resell these specialized camera systems to its global client base in military, government, law enforcement and public safety markets; these customers can utilize Aeroshot’s rental model to try out the systems before making a purchase.

Robert King, Vislink’s European sales director, said that the combination of the EX stabilized heads and Vislink’s broadcast RF technology will allow content creators to work faster and smarter when dealing with live content.

Vislink will feature the EX250 and EX300 cameras at its booth (C6008) during the 2019 NAB Show.