Dejero Mobile Transmitters Deliver Live Coverage of Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon to Internet Viewers

Endless Potential Media Group (EPMG) selected Dejero LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitters for its live streaming coverage of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (STWM), which took place on Oct. 19. Using eight rugged and portable LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitters deployed on motorcycles, EPMG produced a nine-camera HD webcast for live streaming to the STWM website and Canada Running Series YouTube channel.

“The ability to stream live HD coverage to the Internet means we had an opportunity to share the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon with running communities all over the world. That kind of reach would have been difficult, if not impossible, with traditional television broadcasting,” said Alan Brookes, race director, STWM. “With the Dejero mobile transmission technology, we were able to bring the marathon to the world very cost-effectively without sacrificing video quality.”

For the second year EPMG produced the STWM from downtown Toronto in lieu of traditional television broadcast coverage, which was discontinued in 2011. EPMG provided start-to-finish coverage of the race, with commentators in the studio tracking the progress of the runners. Live HD race footage was also supplied directly from the course by camera operators on motorcycles, each equipped with a LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitter. Each transmitter sent a signal using available cellular networks to the EPMG broadcast center in Mississauga, Ontario, where four Dejero LIVE+ Broadcast Servers received the video streams and processed them for uploading to the STWM and Canada Running Series websites.

“Covering outdoor events used to require big, expensive trucks to transmit satellite or microwave signals to television. Dejero has put the TV truck in a box with the LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitter, which can be set up anywhere in seconds to broadcast live or recorded video from the field at a fraction of the cost of a truck,” said Matt Hortobagyi, executive producer, Endless Potential Media Group. “With the LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitters, we were able to stream high-quality HD video right from the heart of the STWM and give marathon fans a ‘you are there’ experience that was much more mobile, immediate, and engaging than traditional event coverage.”

“The STWM is one of North America’s elite-level marathons with participants from all over the world, and EPMG does an outstanding job of bringing the action to life for marathon fans everywhere,” said Brian Cram, CEO of Dejero. “Using our LIVE+ 20/20 Transmitters, EPMG is demonstrating that live Internet streaming is indeed the wave of the future for this type of event coverage — enabling broadcasters to bypass the costs associated with traditional mobile coverage to bring the content directly to their multiscreen audiences instantly.”