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For high profile live sports productions, the stakes are naturally.. high. Whether you’re covering a sports event, music show or broadcasting live news, when time is short and it’s got to be right, broadcasters around the world rely on the precise audio and video alignment analytics offered by Hitomi’s MatchBox solutions.

Live events, especially large ones, pose synchronisation challenges due to the number of mics, cameras and audio channels that need to be kept in alignment. And with the increasing demand for high quality content for 4K or 8K enabled TV screens, consumers expect to experience immersive audio so the timing has to be spot on.

Timeline TV uses Hitomi’s MatchBox Solutions to check their audio and video feeds are in total alignment before going ahead with many of their live broadcasts. Russell Johnson of Hitomi Broadcast visited the production team at Ealing Studios where they were preparing for a remote production broadcast of the Barclay’s FA Women's Super League. The innovative Glass app was used on location as part of their final checks before going live.

In the video below you’ll see the MatchBox Analyser in the MCR measuring the misalignment of 25ms that was soon corrected to 0 much to everyone’s delight.

If the sync isn't right, everyone has a different idea by how much it’s off. Eyes and ears can be highly subjective so Hitomi’s answer is to measure and quantify it. Hitomi takes guesswork out of the equation, replacing human estimates with highly accurate, electronic test audio and video generators along with a state-of-the-art analyser. MatchBox enables the measurement when it’s wrong and provides reassurance when it’s right.

Remote production sports coverage, such as the examples shown at Timeline TV, have emerged as a specialty for MatchBox. Getting audio and video feeds out of alignment can mar the enjoyment for viewers but Hitomi technology ensures that worldwide television audiences can hear what they see.