Esports

Make.TV Sees Esports Pushing Broadcasting Into New Territory


Make.TV has been offering esports broadcasters smart IP-based video distribution for three years now. But it only ended up here by accident.

After the team’s origins in traditional broadcast technology, the company had been developing tools for content creators to deliver more professional video outputs. Outputs that could fit into professional television environments.

“We realized pretty quickly in the market that before TV stations and big broadcasters are able to license content from unknown sources we have to solve [the] technology problem for broadcasters at the TV station,” says Andreas Jacobi, CEO of Make.TV.

“So we developed the live video cloud to enable broadcasters to ingest live video feeds from unknown sources. We were super focused on news when we started the company.”

Make.TV’s live video cloud can essentially acquire many live camera inputs – whether real or virtual – and treat them as a big list of sources to be viewed and managed alongside as many other camera sources as is required.

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Pictured: Andreas Jacobi, Make.TV CEO.

It came to pass that some people at Make.TV had close connections with esports competition and content company ESL Database-Link-e1521645463907. The tools that Make.TV was developing were just what ESL had been looking for. That was in 2016.

“We started that collaboration and it was pretty obvious that esports publishers like ESL and others are much more interesting than news or sport customers because of the volume,” says Jacobi.

“We have Bloomberg, RTA, Al Jazeera, all customers of ours, and all of them together are making less content than ESL.”

While Make.TV was shifting gears to ensure its live video cloud offering was doing its job well, the company realized that not only was the volume greater than traditional broadcasters, but the technical requirements were also far more demanding – and that was something that meant those traditional broadcasters were watching esports closely.

Jacobi said that every media genre, including news broadcasters, sports, and entertainment, are looking at how esports and gaming broadcasts are solving these issues, adding that ESL is broadcasting the equivalent of a World Cup every two weeks. “We realized that winning a big esports customer helps us a lot to enter other genres and to convince and win sports and news and entertainment broadcasters.”

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Credit: PGL

Alongside working with ESL, Make.TV also works with Microsoft’s Database-Link-e1521645463907 streaming platform Mixer. Mixer has been pushing Make.TV’s technology in different directions, particularly through Battle Royale broadcasting, where the maximum 100 players/streamers act as screen inputs, all being mixed together in real-time by an operator at Mixer.

“There’s lots of potential for new creative formats, which is great. These formats are great showcases, or blueprints, for the entertainment and sports industry,” says Jacobi.

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Today, Make.TV’s esports partners include Beyond The Summit, VGA Bootcamp, FACEIT, and PGL Database-Link-e1521645463907. Jacobi emphasizes that, for Make.TV, these names are a great marketing tool when selling their wares to traditional news, sports, and entertainment broadcasters.

“It’s great for us to be able to show how esport customers are moving and how long it takes from first conversation to rollout. It’s a great trigger for the old school guys. They will never be able to move as fast but at least they are motivated to move faster which helps us at the end,” said Jacobi.

But just moving video streams in high quality over IP isn’t Make.TV’s key selling point. Jacobi argues that it’s the real-time flexibility of the platform that sets the company apart. If last minute licensing arrangements demand quick changes to outputs or partners, they can easily accommodate it.

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Credit: ESL

“If you work with other platforms you can multiply one input to multiple targets. But if you change this stream – or you’re integrating an overlay or something like that, that then goes to all these targets.”

Make.TV instead is able to heave each stream receive its own configuration of feed, overlay and whatever other details are required. Many signals in, and many signals out.

When asked what the limits are for Make.TV’s platform, Jacobi simply says it’s the customer’s credit card.

“Imagine a big EVS or Tricaster [broadcast] setup. The maximum you can have is 48 inputs and that is super expensive and big. 24 is more common,” says Jacobi. “For us, there is no limit to the amount of inputs or outputs, only commercial limits.”

Make.TV’s platform is also being used outside of real-time event broadcasting now too, with customers like PGL using it so far mostly to manage reruns of older esports content on their Twitch channels.

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Credit: PGL

Jacobi points out that esports archives are not watched heavily, but when archival esports content gets moved into a linear stream around other major event coverage it can be heavily watched by millions of fans.

But that isn’t what Make.TV believes will make theirs a great platform.

“The product we are calling the Live Video Cloud is our core IP. It’s super unique, super hard to rebuild from somebody else,” says Jacobi.

“It’s the opposite of a Content Delivery Network. We call it a Content Acquisition Network. We think this product has the chance to win the majority of the tournament market. That’s why we’re working hard to win these customers.”

Advertising integration is another concern for managing output on a system that can distribute simultaneously to so many different platforms. Twitch Database-Link-e1521645463907, Facebook, Mixer, YouTube, and wherever else, all can have their own advertising APIs that trigger ads that run exclusively per platform. So managing when the right time is for ads to run and how the lengths will run smoothly on all platforms can be difficult.

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Credit: ESL

For Make.TV, triggering appropriate APIs on various platforms is simple enough. But getting the timings right on the tail end of an ad window so that the user experience feels good – not just weird blackouts while some ads are still running on other platforms – has been a trickier task.

“We enable the operator to configure super detailed and exactly what should happen if Facebook stops advertising after 20 seconds. So we’re making it pretty easy for the operator to configure advertising slots,” says Jacobi.

Jacobi also sees traditional sports broadcasters showing interest in features that esports is not, such as adding more available live sources to add to the mix of options.

“For example, Tour De France, you have lots of mobile feeds next to the professional clean feeds produced by the mobile production companies. Sometimes the mobile feeds capturing exactly the situation you would like to cover.

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“Classical sports broadcasters are more interested in adding features, more interested in acquiring more content on top of their professional feeds than esport customers.”

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Credit: PGL

And with his mix of traditional and esports broadcasting experience, Jacobi also has a perspective on the future of exclusivity and media rights deals in the esports industry. And he thinks the future is wide open.

“No platform will be able to pay enough on the long-term. Initially, to position themselves, they are willing to pay more than what they can generate just to get that content,” says Jacobi.

He points to ESL’s exclusive Facebook deal as unsatisfying for fans, which led to the reversal and return to multiple platforms.

“As the rights holder, your main interest is revenue but also reach. Ideally, more reach means more revenue. That’s just not the case when somebody wants to position their platform and is paying more than they’re earning with their content.”

But that’s not just a story for esports, either. Jacobi feels strongly that across many media formats, more open distribution will be the way forward.

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Credit: ESL

“We’ve argued and discussed with TV stations for years that they should be where the user is,” concluded Jacobi. “The time is gone where you are able to say ‘I have great content on my destination,’ it does not make sense. Every content creator is competing.”


Editor’s note: This interview was conducted by Graham Ashton.





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