Feed Distribution: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The commonest mistake I see is planning the shoot carefully and leaving distribution to the last day. Cameras are booked, operators briefed, a signal path designed from the venue to the vision mixer, and then someone asks how the finished feed will reach the broadcaster. By that point the options have narrowed, and the answer is often whatever link happens to be available rather than the one that suits the programme.

Delivery deserves its own line in the plan, with a named person responsible for it. That person should know who is receiving the feed, in what format, at what time and over which route. When distribution is decided early, every earlier decision about resolution, frame rate and audio layout can be made to fit it, instead of being corrected under pressure on the day.

In our own work, Tom Pascoe holds that responsibility on every job, which means the broadcaster has one contact for questions about the feed.

• Name one person who owns delivery
• Agree the receiving format before the shoot is planned
• Settle the route at the same time as the camera plan

A feed that looks perfect on our monitors can still be rejected at the news desk if it does not match what their system expects. Frame rate, scan type, audio channel layout and loudness all vary between channels, and the differences are rarely obvious until a test goes wrong. Asking a producer what format they need is easy; asking their technical contact is better, because producers often describe what they hope for rather than what the ingest actually accepts.

We ask for the specification in writing and confirm it back in plain terms before anything is sent. If a conversion is needed, we decide where it happens and who checks the result. Converting at the wrong end, or twice, is a quiet way to lose picture quality and introduce lip-sync drift that nobody notices until a presenter points it out on air.

• Get the ingest specification in writing
• Decide where any conversion takes place
• Confirm audio layout and loudness, not only picture

Secure links are dependable, but nothing is dependable enough to carry a live programme with no second route. The mistake is not choosing a particular connection; it is having only one. A fault in a local exchange, a contractor cutting through a cable, or congestion at a venue can remove a path in seconds, and a feed that cannot be restored in time is a gap in the schedule.

A sound arrangement has a primary route and a secondary route that do not share the same physical dependency. If both run through the same building connection, they are really one route wearing two names. We also agree in advance who decides to switch, how the receiving desk is told, and what they will see during the change. A rehearsed failover takes seconds; an improvised one takes minutes, and minutes are long on air.

• Use two routes that do not share a dependency
• Agree who triggers a switch and how it is announced
• Rehearse the failover before the live window

A test carried out an hour before transmission, on the quiet afternoon connection, tells you less than people think. Networks behave differently when a venue fills and when other users come online. A test that passes at three in the afternoon can still mislead you for a seven o'clock transmission, so the timing matters as much as the fact of testing.

We try to test at the hour of the real event where we can, and to send the same material the live feed will carry, including audio and any graphics. We also test the full chain to the receiving desk, not only up to our own outgoing point. Checking only your own end confirms that you are sending, not that anyone is receiving. A short call with the desk, ending with their confirmation that they see and hear the feed, closes that gap.

• Test at the time of day of the transmission
• Send representative material, including audio
• Get confirmation from the receiving desk, not just your own monitor

Feeds fail by time as often as by technology. A desk expecting a feed at the top of the hour and a crew that believes it is due at five past will both be correct by their own notes and wrong together. Vague wording such as around six or shortly after the item makes this worse, because each side fills the gap with its own assumption.

We work from a written running order with a clock time for feed up, a time for line-up material and a time for stand-down. We say who is allowed to call a hold, and what happens if the programme overruns. At the end, we agree when the feed may be closed, because closing a link early while a presenter is still talking is an embarrassment nobody wants to explain afterwards.

• Write every time as a clock time, not a description
• Name who can call a hold or an overrun
• Agree when the feed may be closed

The last mistake comes after the transmission. If a broadcaster later asks whether a feed carried a particular segment, or why a section looked soft, there needs to be something to check. Without a log, the answer rests on memory, and memory of a busy live evening is unreliable.

We keep a short record for each delivery: the route used, the format sent, the times it started and stopped, and any faults and how they were resolved. It takes a few minutes to write and has settled more disagreements than any piece of equipment. It also helps the next job, because the notes show which route behaved well at that venue and which one needed attention.

• Log route, format and start and stop times
• Note faults and how they were resolved
• Keep the notes to inform the next booking