Sohu.com
Event Background
The 18th season of the Sohu News Marathon brought together high-profile celebrities and elite athletes for a 21km course through the iconic streets of Hong Kong. Unlike traditional races, this event focused heavily on real-time celebrity interaction and live content creation, requiring a continuous broadcast presence from the starting line to the final medal ceremony.
The Challenge
The primary difficulty was maintaining a stable, broadcast-quality feed over a moving 21km urban course without the use of motorcycles. We were tasked with capturing live interviews with participants while they were in full motion, requiring equipment that was ultra-portable yet capable of transmitting through Hong Kong’s “urban canyons” and dense RF environments.
Beyond the physical race, the project presented a high-stakes logistical hurdle: time. We were required to coordinate a complex signal flow between multiple mobile field units, a dedicated artist studio, and a centralized MCR under an extremely tight technical build window. Ensuring a zero-error stream for the Sohu.com platform required perfect synchronization of intercoms, real-time content security, and low-latency transmission across all sites.
The Solution
LiveMakerPro collaborated with professional runner-videographers from the Hong Kong Streetathon team to cover the full 21km course. By utilizing LiveU bonded cellular units carried by these elite runners, we achieved high-definition, broadcast-stable coverage from within the race pack.
Ultra-Fast MCR Deployment: Demonstrating our technical agility, our team built and commissioned the entire Master Control Room (MCR) within an ultra-fast, half-day setup window at the event hotel. This allowed for full system testing and intercom synchronization despite the extremely tight timeline.
Professional Broadcast Safety: To meet the rigorous standards of the Sohu.com platform, we deployed a professional HD broadcast delay server. This frame-accurate technology provided a dedicated safety buffer, allowing our operators to monitor and edit the live feed for content security before it went on-air.
Integrated Intercom & Studio: We established a dedicated broadcast room for artist interviews, utilizing a low-latency intercom system to bridge the gap between the hotel studio and the runners on the track.
Instant Highlight Delivery: Using the dual-channel recording capability of our delay unit, our team performed instant highlight video playback immediately after the race, providing a professional recap for the global audience.