16 April, Oslo, Norway – Appear, the global leader in media processing and delivery technology, has been chosen by PSSI Global Services to deliver contribution backhaul for REMI-based productions for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC®). PSSI Global Services will launch Appear’s X Platform for its global distribution of UFC coverage, beginning in May 2023.
Appear’s X Platform is used by broadcasters and service providers globally for the unprecedented high-quality and low latency it delivers for live contribution, enabling next-generation remote production and distribution workflows. It offers the ability to seamlessly blend formats such as HEVC/AVC, ST-2110, JPEG XS, Zixi and now high capacity SRT, with an equally impressive array of processing, Network Address Translation (NAT) and firewall functions.
“The Appear X platform was the only compression solution tested that met all of our requirements,” said Brian Nelles, Executive Vice-President, PSSI Global Services. “The Appear X platform’s flexible feature set and density enables us to scale to meet our client’s increasing volume of camera signals and super slow-motion feeds for remote replay servers. To be able to encode and transmit within such a small form-factor saves money in power and dramatically reduces costs for shipping our field acquisition kits. Appear’s combination of high-quality, low latency production formats, ease of configuration and operational resilience is incredibly powerful.”
PSSI Global Services will deploy Appear’s X Platform to support high-capacity REMI productions. The first Appear platforms will be configured to perform high density HEVC encoding and decoding from live events to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, where PSSI has located its UFC NOC.
The X Platform includes Appear’s ECx110 modules for HEVC ultra-low latency encoding and decoding. It is the only compression solution to offer ultra-low latency, HD and UHD compression with SDI and ST-2110 uncompressed I/O, at scale and with 1RU or 2RU short depth chassis options.
“We are excited to be selected as the trusted partner for this critical REMI production for PSSI Global Services and the UFC”, said Appear’s US General Manager, Ed McGivern. “PSSI has entrusted Appear with this mission critical project after many global tests were performed over multiple networks. We look forward to supporting the PSSI team, spearheaded by Tracy Michaels and Brian Nelles, with our versatile X Platform for multi-codec support, high bandwidth processing, firewalling, and SRT capable compression technology. No other vendor in our space comes close to the density, format choices, and breadth of security offered by our X Platform.”
The Appear X Platform is part of Appear’s ground-to-cloud vision that allows media companies to send signals from cameras at an event to a cloud production platform, without the need to send a mobile unit and accompanying production team. In primary distribution, and video transport to and from the cloud, the platform enables cost-efficiency through transport over the internet. The X Platform provides video transport with industry leading flexibility, density, and energy efficiency.
