RITA's Broadcasting Model - what's the real story?

[Pitman]

8 minutes ago, Freda said:

Otago doesn't exist?  Or is it an honourary part of Southland ?

Either way, it isn't going to operate without Canterbury riders. 

Not in July, it has been well advised that racing kicks off at venues with fibre optics only INVERCARGILL and Riccarton in SI  have such

[Chief Stipe]

1 minute ago, Pitman said:

Not in July, it has been well advised that racing kicks off at venues with fibre optics only INVERCARGILL and Riccarton in SI  have such

Where was that advisement published Pitty?  That means there will be a limited trackside broadcast crew.

I'm sure we could get a fibre connection into Hokitika pronto - not what you know.....

[curious]

8 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Where was that advisement published Pitty?  That means there will be a limited trackside broadcast crew.

I'm sure we could get a fibre connection into Hokitika pronto - not what you know.....

Foxton has fibre at the gate!

[curious]

I am a bit puzzled as to why tracks equipped with fibre are the only ones to operate. Seems highly unlikely now that there would be any Covid related rationale for that by July.

[Chief Stipe]

6 minutes ago, curious said:

I am a bit puzzled as to why tracks equipped with fibre are the only ones to operate. Seems highly unlikely now that there would be any Covid related rationale for that by July.

My guesses are:

1. They won't be sending the broadcast feed to the network via Satellite but via fibre.  I don't know much about their broadcasting model but I assume in some locations they use Satellite as opposed to fibre;
2. More studio type work will be done remotely instead of in a broadcast van hence fibre gives them a better more diverse network connection;
3. Part of the "master plan" and yet another spurious reason to close provincial tracks;
4. Cheaper?

[curious]

But what is stopping them sending the feeds by satellite all of a sudden?

 

[Chief Stipe]

1 minute ago, curious said:

But what is stopping them sending the feeds by satellite all of a sudden?

 

I don't know as I'm assuming that satellite is still part of their model.

I suspect that they are taking the opportunity to go down the path they want to go down regardless of impact.

This has been my greatest fear about the Covid response that it will be used to their own advantage.  A greater fear is that Govenrment will do the same.

[curious]

I imagine there's a lot of tracks with access to fibre that haven't installed it, probably because it's hard to justify for a few meetings a year but I don't recall any requests to do so. Wonder if the likes of Foxton will have to install it for trial meetings?

[Chief Stipe]

7 minutes ago, curious said:

I imagine there's a lot of tracks with access to fibre that haven't installed it, probably because it's hard to justify for a few meetings a year but I don't recall any requests to do so. Wonder if the likes of Foxton will have to install it for trial meetings?

I don't know.  However from a cost perspective if RITA worked with their vendor (Spark) it would cost stuff all to install an access point on a racecourse if like Foxton fibre goes past the front gate.  If the gate and/or the access point are some distance from the broadcast unit then there are lots of options to connect e.g. using Wi-Fi.    

[curious]

25 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

I don't know.  However from a cost perspective if RITA worked with their vendor (Spark) it would cost stuff all to install an access point on a racecourse if like Foxton fibre goes past the front gate.  If the gate and/or the access point are some distance from the broadcast unit then there are lots of options to connect e.g. using Wi-Fi.    

I imagine it could be run and installed in half a day, even if above ground.

[Chief Stipe]

1 minute ago, curious said:

I imagine it could be run and installed in half a day, even if above ground.

Less.  If the main fibre running past the gate was installed as per standard then their will already be a pre-installed connection point.

Then you run a short fibre cable to a secure location and attach an access point device.

A couple of years ago I designed a mobile LAN in a box that would enable the setting up of pop-up offices where ever there was a fibre access point.

[curious]

Perfect. So, even if they insist on fibre, any track with an access point on its boundary could be set up in a heartbeat?

[Chief Stipe]

5 minutes ago, curious said:

Perfect. So, even if they insist on fibre, any track with an access point on its boundary could be set up in a heartbeat?

Theoretically yes.

You'd have to pull some strings with Chorus, Downer or whoever the sub contractor is in your region to jump to the front of the queue.

Then Spark as RITA's IT vendor would have to display some agility and innovation.  

But more than feasible.

[curious]

4 minutes ago, Pitman said:

Mick Guerin (Coaster) in a NZ Herald article

Racing will be restricted to a small number of galloping tracks, with one of the key factors being whether they have permanent fibre satellite links for Trackside television, which makes it significantly cheaper to telecast the meetings. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12325060

That didn't make sense to me. What are fibre satellite links? Chief?

[Huey]

38 minutes ago, curious said:

Perfect. So, even if they insist on fibre, any track with an access point on its boundary could be set up in a heartbeat?

Thats what I was thinking, hasn't 90% of the country got fibre, sounds like some gobble gook to make it sound like they have thought about what they are doing or yet another reason to exclude certain venues? Hopefully I'm wrong in my thinking.

[Chief Stipe]

23 minutes ago, curious said:

That didn't make sense to me. What are fibre satellite links? Chief?

Nor does it make sense to me.  Bloody long cable needed to connect to a satellite!  Would be a bastard for aviation as well.

I'm assuming he means a way to connect to the fibre network.  Just an access point.  Wi-Fi or copper to that would provide more than enough bandwidth.  Or even a fibre cable from the front gate hung on power poles or across the ground.

 

[Chief Stipe]

In any case what's wrong with how they used to do it?

[Bill]

4 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

My guesses are:

1. They won't be sending the broadcast feed to the network via Satellite but via fibre.  I don't know much about their broadcasting model but I assume in some locations they use Satellite as opposed to fibre;
2. More studio type work will be done remotely instead of in a broadcast van hence fibre gives them a better more diverse network connection;
3. Part of the "master plan" and yet another spurious reason to close provincial tracks;
4. Cheaper?

My understanding is that only main venues have fibre, like Ellerslie, Te Rapa, Riccarton etc...the ones that are listed in the first month.

The venues that have the most meetings have fibre. Why would you have a fibre link say at Waverley, for the few meetings they have a year, paying for it 24/7. Would not make sense.

Fibre connects straight from the track to the studio, either by Spark and/or Kordia. Also less delay on the fibre than the satellite.

But anyhow, it’s easier to use that and cheaper. I presume RITA own or rent the fibre lines and they can probably use it 24 hours 7 days a week if need be.

It’s not like connecting your wifi router to your fibre at home, more complex than that. 

Satellite however, there’s a lot mote costs involved. The link has to be paid for, by the hour I am guessing for however long the link is up and being used for. That wouldn’t be cheap I am picking. 
And if you have seen those big satellite trailers RITA own and operate, they need towing to each venue that requires a satellite and need to be set up by an engineer, have seen them do it at Taupo before. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Bill

[Huey]

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

My understanding is that only main venues have fibre, like Ellerslie, Te Rapa, Riccarton etc...the ones that are listed in the first month.

The venues that have the most meetings have fibre. Why would you have a fibre link say at Waverley, for the few meetings they have a year, paying for it 24/7. Would not make sense.

Fibre connects straight from the track to the studio, either by Spark and/or Kordia. Also less delay on the fibre than the satellite.

But anyhow, it’s easier to use that and cheaper. I presume RITA own or rent the fibre lines and they can probably use it 24 hours 7 days a week if need be.

It’s not like connecting your wifi router to your fibre at home, more complex than that. 

Satellite however, there’s a lot mote costs involved. The link has to be paid for, by the hour I am guessing for however long the link is up and being used for. That wouldn’t be cheap I am picking. 
And if you have seen those big satellite trailers RITA own and operate, they need towing to each venue that requires a satellite and need to be set up by an engineer, have seen them do it at Taupo before. 

I'd expect the club would cop the cost of the fibre connection as part of holding race meetings can't see the cost being a real issue, seems a typical obstacle put in the way by those running the show, nothing to do with cost more to so with communication and opportunity.

If its that much of a cost savings why wouldn't the industry want to have as many tracks hooked up as possible for trials etc.

[Chief Stipe]

2 hours ago, Bill said:

The venues that have the most meetings have fibre. Why would you have a fibre link say at Waverley, for the few meetings they have a year, paying for it 24/7. Would not make sense.

 

What sort of connection do they have now?  Why suddenly the difference?

UFB has been installed everywhere particularly the main trunks.  It is the final bit from our front gates to our homes that haven't been done.  Be it your home or business connection they all traverse the same main trunk lines as it were. 

A large organisation such RITA will be on different Telco rates to the rest of us and quite different to small and medium sized businesses.  Their main services are on 24/7 as they have moved their broadcasting options to digital as well as the terminal setups and online apps.  They pay for a significant pipe to connect to the main fibre trunk 24/7 as well as backup.

So adding 53 tracks to that cost would be minimal in the overall scheme of things.  Using Waverley as your example the connection wouldn't have to be on 24/7 only for the days that they race or trial.  To that end all that is required is a relocatable network terminating unit that connects to the same logical circuit.  Then all that is required is some configuration done maybe 24 hours out from the meeting centrally from a computer to reconfigure that logical network.  Easy peasy.  I know it is because I've seen it done.  The biggest constraint would be convincing the dinosaurs at Spark and your own IT department that it is simple.

2 hours ago, Bill said:

Fibre connects straight from the track to the studio, either by Spark and/or Kordia. Also less delay on the fibre than the satellite.

 

Theoretically fibre connects straight from the track to the studio but all the traffic still traverses a common network infrastructure.  One single piece of fibred doesn't go from the track straight to HQ.  Plus it isn't necessarily Spark/Koridia's infrastructure.  The core backbone of the network is owned and installed by Chorus.  Been like that for years.  There are other main trunk fibre providers e.g. Transpower but they all at some stage have to traverse a common network.

Perhaps there is less delay on fibre than satellite but it was fine for Waverly BEFORE Covid-19.  What's changed?  BTW what is the backup for the fibre for the racetracks that have it?  Not been unknown for someone to put a digger through the fibre!  Also local diversity is minimal if you are thinking about a backup fibre circuit.  Again I know this because I implemented a new corporate WAN two years ago migrating from copper based technologies to fibre.

2 hours ago, Bill said:

It’s not like connecting your wifi router to your fibre at home, more complex than that. 

 

It isn't more complex actually.  You may have a different NTU (network terminating unit) at your location suited to faster bandwidth but they essentially are exactly the same in functional.  The fibre connector is the same standard piece of kit.  What also may be different to home is that at home we connect to a small router that is WiFi and ethernet connection capable.  In a business we connect to a larger router that can connect more devices and handles faster bandwidth.  You could use the same business kit at home - indeed I have to prove a point.

2 hours ago, Bill said:

Satellite however, there’s a lot mote costs involved. The link has to be paid for, by the hour I am guessing for however long the link is up and being used for. That wouldn’t be cheap I am picking. 
And if you have seen those big satellite trailers RITA own and operate, they need towing to each venue that requires a satellite and need to be set up by an engineer, have seen them do it at Taupo before. 

Again Bill what would be the backup on site for a fibre network?  I bet you that it is normally a Satellite.

YEAH NA - at the end of the day the need for a fibre connection is red herring.  I know exactly what is needed and what is happening.  To tell you the truth when I read this sort of stuff I get really pissed off.

The key in doing these things is having someone on the customer team that is passionate about the business, thinks outside the square, gets things done and is not blindsided by technical BS.  Oh and doesn't mind upsetting some vendor staff.  When we rolled out the UFB based corporate network there were two vendors involved - the telco and the data centre vendor (different comany's).  In RITA's case unless they have outsourced entirely their IT which judging by their salary bill they haven't then they are only dealing with one vendor.  I was told by the Telco that to shift all the circuits from old tech to new UFB would take 3 months or more.  I found out the only real constraint was the physical connection i.e. the fibre from the road to my branch network cabinet.  Once that was all sorted I asked to do the branch switch overs in one week - not 3 months.

All hell broke out - escalations galore.  But I stuck to my guns and made sure I talked to the people who really understood and who had the clout.  You see once the physical connection is in place it is only the logical network connections that need to programmed and connected.  With today's technology that takes 10 mins to do.  We broke a Telco record and cut over 12 branches in one day.

To transmit live video in 4k High Definition format you could get by with 100mb/s.  

(PS:  For those of you considering buying an 8K Definition TV - the next generation - if you are over 50 you are wasting your time as your eyes probably couldn't discern the difference between 4k and 8k.  Unless you wanted more than 100 inches of screen).

[Chief Stipe]

Oh and BTW 98% of our schools have fibre optic cable connections and they don't operate 24/7!

[Bill]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

What sort of connection do they have now?  Why suddenly the difference?

UFB has been installed everywhere particularly the main trunks.  It is the final bit from our front gates to our homes that haven't been done.  Be it your home or business connection they all traverse the same main trunk lines as it were. 

A large organisation such RITA will be on different Telco rates to the rest of us and quite different to small and medium sized businesses.  Their main services are on 24/7 as they have moved their broadcasting options to digital as well as the terminal setups and online apps.  They pay for a significant pipe to connect to the main fibre trunk 24/7 as well as backup.

So adding 53 tracks to that cost would be minimal in the overall scheme of things.  Using Waverley as your example the connection wouldn't have to be on 24/7 only for the days that they race or trial.  To that end all that is required is a relocatable network terminating unit that connects to the same logical circuit.  Then all that is required is some configuration done maybe 24 hours out from the meeting centrally from a computer to reconfigure that logical network.  Easy peasy.  I know it is because I've seen it done.  The biggest constraint would be convincing the dinosaurs at Spark and your own IT department that it is simple.

Theoretically fibre connects straight from the track to the studio but all the traffic still traverses a common network infrastructure.  One single piece of fibred doesn't go from the track straight to HQ.  Plus it isn't necessarily Spark/Koridia's infrastructure.  The core backbone of the network is owned and installed by Chorus.  Been like that for years.  There are other main trunk fibre providers e.g. Transpower but they all at some stage have to traverse a common network.

Perhaps there is less delay on fibre than satellite but it was fine for Waverly BEFORE Covid-19.  What's changed?  BTW what is the backup for the fibre for the racetracks that have it?  Not been unknown for someone to put a digger through the fibre!  Also local diversity is minimal if you are thinking about a backup fibre circuit.  Again I know this because I implemented a new corporate WAN two years ago migrating from copper based technologies to fibre.

It isn't more complex actually.  You may have a different NTU (network terminating unit) at your location suited to faster bandwidth but they essentially are exactly the same in functional.  The fibre connector is the same standard piece of kit.  What also may be different to home is that at home we connect to a small router that is WiFi and ethernet connection capable.  In a business we connect to a larger router that can connect more devices and handles faster bandwidth.  You could use the same business kit at home - indeed I have to prove a point.

Again Bill what would be the backup on site for a fibre network?  I bet you that it is normally a Satellite.

YEAH NA - at the end of the day the need for a fibre connection is red herring.  I know exactly what is needed and what is happening.  To tell you the truth when I read this sort of stuff I get really pissed off.

The key in doing these things is having someone on the customer team that is passionate about the business, thinks outside the square, gets things done and is not blindsided by technical BS.  Oh and doesn't mind upsetting some vendor staff.  When we rolled out the UFB based corporate network there were two vendors involved - the telco and the data centre vendor (different comany's).  In RITA's case unless they have outsourced entirely their IT which judging by their salary bill they haven't then they are only dealing with one vendor.  I was told by the Telco that to shift all the circuits from old tech to new UFB would take 3 months or more.  I found out the only real constraint was the physical connection i.e. the fibre from the road to my branch network cabinet.  Once that was all sorted I asked to do the branch switch overs in one week - not 3 months.

All hell broke out - escalations galore.  But I stuck to my guns and made sure I talked to the people who really understood and who had the clout.  You see once the physical connection is in place it is only the logical network connections that need to programmed and connected.  With today's technology that takes 10 mins to do.  We broke a Telco record and cut over 12 branches in one day.

To transmit live video in 4k High Definition format you could get by with 100mb/s.  

(PS:  For those of you considering buying an 8K Definition TV - the next generation - if you are over 50 you are wasting your time as your eyes probably couldn't discern the difference between 4k and 8k.  Unless you wanted more than 100 inches of screen).

Transmitting HD broadcast quality pictures is totally different to what happens in your home with your own wifi router. It doesn’t just go into a router, it is specific kit that does this and converts it into a paticular signal. A quick google search will tell you that. 
 

i understand it goes into the spark/kordia network. My point is, it all isn’t cheap. 

[Chief Stipe]

6 minutes ago, Bill said:

Transmitting HD broadcast quality pictures is totally different to what happens in your home with your own wifi router. It doesn’t just go into a router, it is specific kit that does this and converts it into a paticular signal.

I didn't say it was exactly the same.  What is the same is it is all data that traverses the same network.  There isn't "special" fibre that goes from Riccarton to the Parnell.  It is the same.

What is different are the devices attached at either end.

Now those devices at the track end are transported from track to track.  Normally!

If RITA is installing permanent network equipment at tracks other than just a NTU and maybe a cabinet then no wonder we are going broke.

 

[Bill]

You can look in the window in the building at te rapa racecourse where the trackside broadcast truck parks on a raceday and see the frame of equipment there, that is the fibre optic unit that the pictures go into. Yes the truck moves around, but there is always a piece of equipment that says there, that belongs to the telcos that they plug the signal into.
I have a cousin who works in this field for sky tv and he has informed me that it would stay there, just like they have for some of the big stadiums here eg eden park, waikato stadium which have full time dedicated circuits

[Chief Stipe]

8 hours ago, Bill said:

You can look in the window in the building at te rapa racecourse where the trackside broadcast truck parks on a raceday and see the frame of equipment there, that is the fibre optic unit that the pictures go into.

There is only one part of that frame of equipment that needs to be permanent.

Here are some pictures:

 

This is what they call an FTTH - Fibre To The Home which is a little bit of a misnomer as it is essentially a Fibre Termination Unit and comes in variety of flavours depending on the installation (FTTX).  They are the cheapest part of a fibre network.  They ALL do essentially the same thing terminating the yellow cable (the fibre) into a connector that a splitter device can connect into.  Which in the home is a mini router which enables a connection to Wi-Fi or ethernet cable.  For a business it would be a router that can vary in size from 8 ports to as many as 58 ports.  A 58 port router is about the size of a pizza box. The FTTH is not much bigger than the size of my hand.  The FTTH costs $3.

 

 

The second picture is of a more sophisticated FTTX.  It splits the incoming fibre into multiple fibre connections which enables direct fibre connectivity to multiple devices.  Costs about $90.  Not really necessary for our racetrack installations.  This unit is about the size of your average hard copy novel.

Now the rest of the equipment is moveable.  So all the lights you see flashing 24/7 at Te Rapa can be installed in a moveable unit as at the end of the day all the pieces of equipment aggregate to one or maybe two pieces of fibre. 

Why have they chosen to make it permanent at Te Rapa?  Well it is in the vendors interests for a start.  It earns them more money.  For every location that they install this they sell you more and more kit (equipment).  They charge you maintenance fees, they hook in a high level Service Level Agreement (SLA), they charge you for each MAC's (Moves, Adds, Changes) and on and on and on.  

Oh and don't forget they charge you 24/7 for the top of the line network connection whether you use it or not.  I hope Te Rapa are using that connection for their normal business and paying for it.

The in house IT team love it because they can be lazy - if something goes wrong they can ring up the vendor and log a fault.  "Yes boss we are onto it - we have logged a Priority One fault with Spark."

 

8 hours ago, Bill said:

Yes the truck moves around, but there is always a piece of equipment that stays there, that belongs to the telcos that they plug the signal into.

The only piece of equipment that needs to stay there is the FTTH(x).  The rest of the kit could be put in a Suzuki Swift and all you would need is a couple of cables from the FTTH and a couple more to the broadcast van and a power lead.  Done and dusted!

How do I know this?  Because I've done it.  Setting up a pop-up store - plug and sell.

In actual fact the technology is here now to not even need the permanent fibre connection.  How do you think they stream live high definition video from the America's Cup boats to your TV screen?  The cameras are not connected to satellites I assure you.  Or the high definition drone vision?  Sorry but only the military can afford satellite connected drones.

With the pop-up store configuration we did that 3 years ago.  Even then there was technology to enable the use of 4G wireless connectivity.  

As for Waikato Stadium or Eden Park - well their business model can probably justify a dedicated circuit.  Eden Park for example has 41 full time employees and they have other on site activities during the year that would justify the cost.

I appreciate what your cousin has told you.  As most BOAYer's would confirm I don't normally talk about what I've done in life as I'm quite private about that.  In that respect it has been posted on other forums that I've never been very involved in racing.  I haven't bothered to defend that.  But with this issue that we are debating now...well it has touched a sore point, scratched a festering scab.

I've worked in IT for 33 years.  At one stage I worked for Telecom (Spark) and had a $90m dollar budget.  I was responsible for ensuring capacity and implementation of innovation in New Zealand's data network at a time when 90% of NZ's data traversed the Telecom network.  I'm maybe viewed as too old in the industry now but in terms of innovation and using new technology I'd back myself to go head to head with any young buck.  Not only that I've walked the walk.

For me technology has been a passion and an innate skill that I discovered by chance.  My career started out in Horticultural Science.  Another passion in life has been horse racing - it started with harness and latterly thoroughbreds.  When I see the BS that is being spouted to justify what I see as a hidden agenda I really get wound up.  So excuse me Bill.

PS:  RITA give me a call.  Happy to consult and sort your IT out.