LiveNation Now Uses the Newly Developed Concert Registration System from Sceneware
Sceneware successfully developed the technology for concert registrations in both HD and SD formats. The first version of the full system that allows for monitoring and control of 80+ venues around the world is now fully operational.
Every venue takes as input as many as six DVCpro 100 cameras and stores this data on a single computer. A directors cut is at the same time streamed live in various formats over the internet and to mobiles. This is the most advanced concert registration software on the market today. This project was ordered by LiveNation, in order to streamline their concert registrations and make them much more reliable.
Challenge
Create a setup to store, monitor, control and broadcast live concerts from 80+ venues around the world from LiveNation head-quarters in LA.
Demands for HD-recording in a single computer:
- Record six DVCPro 100 camera-streams to hard-disk simultaneously.
- Record timecode stream.
- Record directors cut (camera selection) and create edit-files for Final Cut Pro with above DV-streams.
- Monitor and be able to handle: wrong camera settings, camera failures, hard-disk problems, network problems, system failures, and more.
- Reduce the time from concert to content on DVD by at least a quarter.
- Make the system 100% reliable.
Demands for SD-recording and broadcasting in a single computer:
- Broadcast and record the live concert in H264, MP4, Flash and Windows Media. Both for mobile and for internet.
- Automatically switch audio channels if audio accidently drops on one line.
- Monitor and be able to handle: hard-disk problems, network problems, bitrates, system failures, and more.
- Local monitoring and intervention for both SD and HD with a touchscreen driven GUI in case the internet-connection to LiveNation head-quarters is lost.
- And again: make the system 100% reliable 
A comprehensive website controls and monitors all venues, the network operations center (NOC). In one overview the status of every venue, SD and HD combined, is presented by green, orange and red buttons for video, audio, network, temperature and timecode. Recording in a venue can be started and stopped with a single click. Every stream in a venue can be controlled and monitored independently (see screenshot in above picture). Video tracks in both SD and HD can be visually monitored with refreshing JPEG images and small WAV samples for audio. Textual feedback and logs allow for quick trouble-shooting. The NOC is also used to create and edit streams using presets or from scratch and you can schedule shows for automatic loading and recording. The latter to auto-start even if the network connection from the venue to the NOC is down.
The HD-system goes without interface, but the SD-system has an intuitive touch-screen interface that allows all the monitoring and control features present in the NOC for both systems. This way, people at site can quickly, independently from the NOC, notice problems and have enough info to solve them quickly. Recording of both the SD- and HD-systems can be controlled as well. VU-meters for audio and (fullscreen) video for all input channels make the system complete.
Technology
Both the HD and SD system use SceneChange as technological basis. Its SOAP interface allows for easy connection between the two systems and the monitoring and control website developed in Ruby on Rails. The outstanding performance of SceneChange allow both the HD and SD system to handle more simultaneous streams reliably; limiting the total setup to two computers only.
Product
The system is in operation since December 2007 and has been recording and broadcasting many concerts already. It has proven to be reliable and has met all demands. With our hardware partner we can offer complete systems for sale or we can sell the software separately. Please send your enquiry and wishes to sales@sceneware.nl and we will provide you with all the details.
About Sceneware
Sceneware is a world-leading MPEG-4 encoding specialist. The company provides a suite of competitively-priced verification, manipulation and streaming solutions for mobile and Internet-focused video content providers, backed up with exceptional levels of support, experience and advice. Owned and run by its founders since 1992. Sceneware works with service providers, broadcasters, content owners and OEMs including Vodafone, Orange, KPN, Universal, Tandberg, Motorola, Siemens, TDK and Philips.
