EVS and Orange Belgium are collaborating on a project that showcases centralised, 5G-based production – demonstrating the potential to reduce costs and production team travel, host diverse live productions the same day, and get smaller events onto TV.
The two companies have embarked on an ambitious pilot project utilising many different capabilities of 5G technology to bring live theatre performances to schools in the Walloon and Brussels regions of Belgium. The ‘Flex Production’ initiative is supported by the Belgian Federal Government and demonstrates how 5G enhances the flexibility of remote productions.
EVS and Orange Belgium, alongside La Grand Poste, Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement, and Playtime Films, collaborated with the Théâtre de Liège to live stream the theatrical play Andromaque, to over 70 schools in the Wallonia and Brussels regions.
Renaud Falise, 5G & IoT Strategic Manager at Orange Belgium, says, “The project marks a significant milestone in the world of live video technology, showcasing the immense potential of 5G and its practical applications.”
The theatre setup includes multiple Ultra HD cameras, each equipped with a LiveU field encoder for transmitting video feeds via Orange Belgium's 5G network to a central control room at La Grand Poste – a hub dedicated to fostering creativity and innovation.
Powered by LiveU’s field-proven Reliable Transport protocol (LRT), the encoders ensure high quality and ultra-low latency live streams over the 5G network.
The control room features EVS central production system, which is orchestrating the entire live production process. In addition, EVS’ MediaHub SaaS content exchange solution gives rapid access to video content for the creation of clips, highlights and long-form content, seamlessly delivering it across the web.
Nicolas Bourdon, Chief Marketing Officer at EVS, says: "5G technology is set to drastically reduce the need for production team travel, resulting in a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. By centralising audiovisual production tools through 5G technology, we are driving resource consolidation, which, in turn, translates to reduced operational costs for event production.
“With this centralisation, you can easily imagine hosting diverse productions in a single day, such as morning TV debates, midday news programmes, afternoon theatre plays, and regional sporting events in the evening—all made possible by the same infrastructure. This opens up opportunities for smaller events to reach larger audiences through accessible, professional-grade audiovisual content distribution."
The educational institutions selected by WBE have free access to EVS' MediaHub platform, which serves as the repository for all footage captured on October 5. Students can access the recorded content of the Andromaque play from any location. Thanks to the integration of MediaHub with Blackbird’s cloud native video editing platform, they can create their own edits and highlights of the performance directly in the cloud.
Demonstrating the significant educational component in the project, students will be trained by EVS to navigate and utilise this dynamic platform for content editing and production, fostering the growth of the next generation of content creators.
Renaud Falise at Orange Belgium provided additional background. “We inaugurated a first Orange 5G Lab in Antwerp in October 2021, and a second one in the iconic Grand Poste in Liège in 2022, demonstrating our role as a generator for innovative solutions leveraging Orange Belgium's 5G network. The live capture at the Théâtre de Liège is a testament to the vast possibilities unlocked by this groundbreaking technology.”