Lucas Oil Taps LBiSat, ARCTEK HD for Worldwide Motocross Delivery

This weekend, the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship descends on Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT, for the final race of the series.  And motorsports fans everywhere will be able to tune in for live race coverage, thanks to the collective efforts of LBiSat and ARCTEK HD.

Prior to the 2014 series, Lucas Oil inked a five-year deal with satellite transmission service providers LBiSat and ARCTEK HD to provide transmission for the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship series.

“Mainly the thing we were looking for from both those companies is someone that understands our business and… all the different networks that we’re on,” says Scott McLemore, executive producer, Lucas Oil Studios. “Along with also providing a smaller compact Sprinter van that’s easier to park into the TV compound that we have, because the space is very limited… It’s been a great relationship this first year.”

On Saturday afternoon, MAV TV – owned and operated by Lucas Oil — will broadcast the first motos live while NBCSN and NBC Sports Live Extra will combine to present six hours coverage on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. ProMotocross.com will stream the entire event live, from practice and pre-show through the first and second motos.

Contracted by Lucas Oil, LBiSat arranges the satellite transmission from each series, which includes handling coordinates, booking time, designing schematics, and more.

“Lucas Oil was looking for a partner that would bring some value-added capabilities to traditional space segment and uplinks, and then of course they were looking for cost-savings as well,” says Michael Chronister, director, sales and business development, LBiSat. “They were looking for a partner that they could work with that could be nimble and do stuff on the fly.”

Says Melodee Baird Paul, LBiSat’s global manager for media, technology, and events, “We had to figure out what the schematic for the transmission path that they needed and we’re muxing those together. Now, they’re probably going to add more next year but this year they’re doing four paths at one time and it was kind of a unique process — that’s why they asked us to help to figure that out, and I found the right vendor to accommodate that request.”

That vendor was ARCTEK HD, which was contracted to provide a satellite uplink Sprinter van. ARCTEK Purple has traveled to each site in the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, using Adtec Digital EN-100 encoders to compress the broadcast feed to MPEG-4. The truck is capable of transmitting up to six discrete HD channels on a single 36MHz C-band transponder.

“Starting in May through August 23, we are putting up a multiplex — a mux signal — for international, domestic, and then a domestic clean feed for the different networks and distribution,” says Brian Stanlely, owner, ARCTEK HD. “The unique part [of this series] is the muxing. Being able to send up to six HD signals down one 36 megahertz transponder is going to keep satellites relevant for years to come.”

For each race in the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship series, Lucas Oil deploys 15 cameras along the course, as well as two wireless POV cameras and one to two RF hand held cameras provided by 3g Wireless. The show is produced out of a Game Creek Video A and B unit, in which both domestic and international feeds are created before being distributed worldwide.