eSports Made Easy With Idonix

There’s no denying it. eSports is a big deal. With revenues of over $1 billion and reaching audiences of over 443 million in 2019 alone [1], the numbers speak for themselves. Over the past few years, Idonix have been dipping their feet into the eSports broadcast market – taking our tried and tested ‘battle-proven’ software and expertise from the world of elections and real-world sports broadcasting and translating it into an eSports offering that really delivers. Need a graphics automation system that takes live data from a variety of sources, instantly translates that data into meaningful graphics and squirts them out to whatever render technology you like? You’ve come to the right place…

Ignition

At Idonix we have over 20 years of experience in the live broadcast tv domain, starting way back in 1999 with the first Welsh Assembly elections. Over the years since, our approach has evolved with new technology and overcome new hurdles as they came our way. Ignition is our latest software incarnation – a light and flexible framework, built to handle the fast-paced changes of live broadcast. Need an extra button on your screen that performs a specific task? We can deploy small changes in minutes – because we understand the need for flexibility and adaptability – and fast!

Ignition is centred around the triumvirate of Data, Workflow and Graphics. Each piece is as important as the rest:

DATA

MANAGING INCOMING DATA:

Wrangling, sorting and analysing the numbers as soon as they come in and exposing everything in a meaningful and understandable way.

WORKFLOW

SUBLIME WORKFLOW FOR OPERATORS:

Making sure you can react to the story – ultimate flexibility with how and what you bring to air.

GRAPHICS

OUTPUT YOUR GRAPHICS:

Squirting out the correct data to graphics renderers: keeping you on brand and driving whatever technology you have at your disposal.

Interested? Read on for more information on what features a custom Ignition implementation could provide for your eSports broadcast:

GAME DATA IN

Ignition can pull its game data from any number of places – whether it’s on-premise or in the cloud, via HTTP, polling endpoints, TCP or Websockets. We’ll work closely with the providers of such data to ensure we get all the right information into Ignition as quickly as possible.

GRAPHICS OPERATORS

Operators are at the heart of any live broadcast. Without them we wouldn’t get anywhere! With Ignition you can define as many or as few operator roles as you need based on the scale of the operation.

TYPE-INS

Simple graphics can be typed in - either pre-prepared in advance or reacting to events on the night. For example name-supers of guests, OB location identifiers, or rolling News headlines for straps and tickers.

PREP & STACK

Operators can have access to all the graphics available in the system, and can pre-prepare sequences ready for transmission, based on running orders. Any data driven graphics will have their data populated automatically as it comes in so it’s ready to go.

AUTOMATED GRAPHICS CONTROL

Any graphics based on live in-game data will update automatically when that data changes – graphics such as scoreboards, statistics, health and ‘events’ (goals, kills, objectives etc.). However, these graphical elements still need to be monitored, brought in and out of vision, and their functionality activated and deactivated. Operators have full control over what graphics are currently on screen, and can bring in and out different elements that are based on live updating data.

TX

TXing graphics is easy with Ignition - simple stack screens with big ‘NEXT’ button to move to the next animate point. These stacks can be created and re-ordered by the TXer, or from a separate prep position who then publishes their pre-prepared stacks ready to be TXed. For set-piece sections, we also allow for intelligent grouping of known graphics based on a running-order – when a particular item is live, quickly search for all graphics that are tagged for that segment. Our ‘quick-fire’ stack then lets you jump around different graphics out of sequence in the case of fast-paced interviews with multiple guests. Our TX screens are so simple to use, they can even be given to presenters on a small personal touchscreen on their desk.

PREVIEW GRAPHICS

The first time you see your graphic shouldn’t be when it’s on air! Ignition provides custom built previews of all graphics so operators can sanity check them before TX. This is useful to check that the correct information has arrived from the game data provider, or in the case of typed-in graphics, to check the chosen text will fit within the bounds of the graphic without being squashed or cropped.

ONE WORKFLOW FOR ALL

Whether you’re prepping or controlling Full Frame graphics, Lower-Thirds, Virtual Reality or Architectural Projection, the same simple Ignition systems are used following the same workflow paradigms and layouts. This makes it easy for operators to switch between roles without any additional learning curves.

INFO SCREENS

PRESENTER DESK “NOW & NEXT”

Ignition client screens can be fed directly to the presenter’s under-desk monitoring. This allows them to see a large readable preview of the graphic currently being shown on screen, as well as the next graphic in the stack.

GALLERY CONFIDENCE

Often the gallery want to have their own preview of what graphics have been prepared and are stacked ready for TX. An Ignition client can be set up to preview any number of prep or tx stacks, or even multiple stacks on one monitor. This can be useful for the gallery to know when the post-match results from a match have come in from the data provider and are ready to go, or to check the currently stacked name-supers match the guests who are currently sat round the table.

RESULTS BROWSER

Everyone loves browsing data! When you have people who are passionate about something, they really enjoy geeking out at every little bit of data they can get their hands on – such data might not be necessary for broadcast, but experts can use Ignition as a tool for more in-depth analysis of the numbers to spot interesting things to talk about. It’s also useful for presenters to keep an eye on how a particular match is unfolding so they can talk knowledgeably about it afterwards.

GRAPHICS OUT

Our renderer-agnostic graphics output systems can control any number of different technologies, from VizRT & Ross XPression, to Unreal Engine and Zero Density. Even budget-friendly options like HTML rendering with CasparCG.

Switching from one graphic provider to another, or even driving graphics to more than one provider, requires no extra effort with Ignition – no changes whatsoever in operator experience.

Some complex VR setups involve multiple renderers driving the same scene with the same data – just different tracking information fed to different engines. Ignition covers this easily – assign multiple connections to the same scene and they’ll all get the same data at the same time.

OTT

As well as driving physical on-premise render engines, Ignition can also control interactive cloud-based graphics delivery systems such as the brilliant Ease Live by Sixty. These connections can be set up in parallel so as you TX a graphic to air via a conventional renderer, that same graphic is TXed on mobile and tablet applications with added interactive elements.

CLIP RENDERING

Want pre-defined clips and stills rendered with live data? Triggered as soon as that data becomes available? Want it rendered in multiple formats for use on different social media platforms and the web? Ignition does just that – helping you bring your esports broadcast to as many platforms as possible, as soon as possible.

SCALEABLE

Seems like too big an operation for your requirements? We can scale to fit! We can condense operator roles into a single screen for simple data monitoring and graphics TX so one person can drive it all:

OUR TRACK RECORD

2018 PUBG GLOBAL INVITATIONAL

  • Built XPression FF and L3 graphics
  • Ignition system ingesting live In-Game and Tournament data from Fanview API
  • Operator TX and prep roles
  • Supplementary game data screens

2019 NATIONAL PUBG LEAGUE

  • Built XPression AR Map
  • Ignition system ingesting live in-game data, post-match analysis & tournament data from Fanview API
  • FF TX, AR Map prep & TX
  • Supplementary game data screens

CASE STUDY

2019 PUBG GLOBAL CHAMPIONSHIP

  • Built Viz AR Map
  • Built Viz AR Post-Match Analysis gfx
  • Ignition system ingesting live in-game data, post-match analysis & tournament data from Fanview API
  • FF TX, AR stats TX, AR Map prep & TX
  • Supplementary game data screens

What our friends say

Idonix deliver a quality product and always meet their deadlines - improving workflow and data management
Siena Dixon, Fanview

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