In Building an Esports Venue Part I, we examined the growth of Esports viewership, as well as the expansion in live and broadcast Esports venues. Perhaps the driving force behind this growth has been online gaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube, which generate millions of unique broadcasters and viewers.

In terms of competitive action, esports broadcasts look a little different from traditional sports broadcasts like football or baseball — but during a global pandemic, it's the ideal sport for social distancing. With most NCAA reopening plans being axed due to COVID-19, esports has seen tremendous growth. NACE (National Association of Collegiate Esports) now has over 170 member schools, 5,000+ student athletes and over $16 million in esports scholarships and aid. According to Sales Support Engineer Rob Brambilla, esports has become an effective way for universities to appeal to a whole new market segment of students. “Over the next few years, esports will be the biggest segment, as far as growth."

Esports Venue Combinations

Panasonic Connect has recently developed a seamless glass-to-glass solution to help colleges build their very own esports venue. This solution includes projectors, professional video, and professional display technologies to capture and distribute events both onsite and online in 4K resolution.

We have divided the combinations into three venues, which include:

• Gaming Facilities
• Gaming Arenas
• Gaming Stadiums

The technology and gear portfolio revolve around projectors, flat panel displays, 4K/HD video switchers, robotic PTZ cameras, studio and cinema cameras and camcorders.

Esports Gaming Facilities

For 1,200–2,000-foot gaming or training facilities, this solution could be anything from a multi-purpose room or a computer lab, which could serve as training grounds or as a small introductory Esports venue.

"Obviously, we have a huge pro video lineup that leverages and lends itself towards Esports broadcasts,” reveals Sr. Territory Account Manager Jared Darensbourg. "But with a lot of gaming facilities, you're not going to have a live audience, or even spectators, so you're typically not going to have the same setup as you would for an arena or stadium."

Here's what's included in the esports gaming facility package:

Professional Video

• AW-UE4 (as POV) PTZ camera (4x)
• AW-HE42 PTZ camera (2x)
• AV-HLC100 video switcher

Projector 

• PT-RZ12K (2x)

Professional Display

• TH-55LFV9U 3.5m 2x2 (4x)
• TH-65C01 U (2x)
• TH-86C01 U (2x)

Esports Gaming Arenas

Esports venues fall between esports facilities and stadiums with regard to size — both in physical footprint and seating capacity. As a result, they typically require more technology than facilities but less than stadiums to cover event needs. 

Here's what's included in the esports gaming arena package:

Professional Video

• AW-UE4 (as POV) PTZ camera (4x)
• AW-HE130 (Alternates: AW-UE100 or AW-UE150) PTZ camera (4x)
• AV-UHS500 video switcher
• KAIROS IT/IP Video Processing Platform

Projector

• PT-RQ22KU (2x)

Professional Display

• TH-55VF1 HU 1.8mm 3x3 (6x)
• 4K UHD, 350 cd/m2 LED LCD Displays (2x) TH-43/50/55/65/75/86-EQ1U

Esports Gaming Stadiums

Esports gaming stadiums are larger than both esports facilities and esports arenas. They can seat thousands of attendees at a time, using AV technology to ensure broadcast live games and replays to enhance the audience experience and ensure no one misses a second of the gaming action. 

Although LED boards are common for large gaming stadiums, what if your institution does not have a multi-million dollar budget to build a large LED wall?

"Instead of LED boards, Panasonic offers native 4K projectors, as well as 4K displays on the periphery for the audience to view," explains Darensbourg. "All of our broadcast equipment — from studio cameras to PTZ cameras — can fit it within your budget."

"The one thing you’re not going to use to broadcast an Esports event is a GoPro camera," adds Brambilla. "It's almost impossible to try to make a GoPro look like a part of a cohesive broadcast, but, obviously, we can't have giant cameras sitting right in front of these players faces. Panasonic PTZ cameras are ideal for POV shots of players. With an AV-HLC100 switcher, I can run an entire show off of our AW-UE4s and AW-HE42 PTZ cameras."

Here's what's included in the esports gaming stadium package:

Professional Video 

• AW-UE4 (as POV) PTZ camera (4x)
• AW-UE150 PTZ camera (4x)
• AK-UC4000 studio camera (2)
• Kairos IT/IP Video Processing Platform

Projector

• PT-RQ32KU (2x)

Professional Display

• TH-55VF1 HU 0.88mm 5x5 (10x)
• 4K UHD 500 cd/m2, 24/7, SOM, LED LCD Displays (8x) TH-43/55/65/98 SQ1U

Switching for Esports

Even though players are stationary, there's an abundance of visual activity happening in an esports competition. Panasonic Connect's IT/IP-based KAIROS can be the center of your production.

KAIROS is a live production platform that offers professionals unlimited control over how they deliver content to audiences — whether on large displays or in live streams. It achieves higher performance by fully utilizing the power and flexibility of its CPU and GPU, balancing total processing load without the configuration constraints of traditional hardware-based systems. Key features include: 

• Ability to produce 4K HDR images, which ensures best-in-picture quality.
• Resolution- and format-independent operation, with capabilities for processing mixed input sources with different resolutions simultaneously.  
• Allows for as many video layers as the GPU capacity permits.
• Low processing latency (as little as one frame), which enables a near-seamless viewing/listening experience. 
• Fully supports baseband and IP signals such as SDI, ST 2110 and NDI in any combination without external conversion.

"Esports events heavily rely on graphics because they revolve around a video game," says Brambilla. "Typically we need very large switchers, to be able to have a bunch of M/Es (Mixed Effect) available to create all these crazy graphics and to be able to manage multiple areas. KAIROS makes it much easier."

For a less complicated Esports webstream, Brambilla feels the AV-HLC100 video switcher is an ideal solution because of its features that allow it to be an all-in-one machine. "If you wanted to cook up your own recipe for being able to stream multiple cameras to the web, you're talking about multiple computers," says Brambilla. "It's much simpler to just install an HLC100, connect your cameras, and now you've got camera control, graphics, audio mixing, effects and an encoder. It's kind of a no-brainer.

Panasonic Connect: A One Stop Solution for Esports Broadcasting Needs

Panasonic Connect manufactures numerous products that can be utilized not only in broadcast sports, but also other applications such as distance learning or corporate communication. "In our current situation, what we have done is honed and created a product line-up to become a product solution for Esports," reveals Joe Conover, Strategic Initiatives Manager, Panasonic Live Events. "You have our display products, pro video products, as well as the other visual systems products. But yet what we are growing to is become a full solution provider.

"There's no cookie cutter where everything will fit inside a box, but it is a good conversation by example of small, medium and large, that could take you to a design question of what we really need to utilize this space. For us as a company. It's nice to see us growing this technology learning from our partners, resellers and consultants and end users to say what can we become what is our solution to provide in this space."

For more information on Panasonic solutions for your esports venue, click through here.