ReThink Faultline Dec 3 2020: "A recent acquisition [by ELEVEN Sports] could be the first big test for LCEVC"

Multinational TV channel provider Eleven Sports is famous for traveling the world and collecting sports rights, particularly in small or developing countries but also competing with the big boys for top content. Serving a spread of live sports content to a diversity of markets has prompted Eleven Sports to adopt two entirely separate technology stacks – one for delivering premium content and another for lower priority sports.

Speaking during a webinar this week, Eleven Sports CEO Luis Vicente explained that the reasoning behind having two technology stacks is that, for premium content, there is a much lower margin of error for content delivery. He compared Champions League matches, the creme de la creme of European soccer, to a niche second tier match from the Brazilian league as an example of how content is separated across the respective technology stacks. […] Vicente also revealed that Eleven Sports is planning to launch three new platforms built around these two technology stacks. While there are few details on vendor involvement in building Eleven’s back-end, we do know that the company is an early adopter of the LCEVC (low complexity enhancement video codec), developed by V-Nova.