BT Sport has been crowned the winner of the IBC Innovation Award for Content Delivery 2016 for pioneering the production and delivery of more than 60 sporting events across its end to end Ultra HD ecosystem.

The IBC Innovation Awards celebrate the partnership between broadcasters, production companies and technology suppliers that push for and deliver the quality, creativity and accessibility of content to audiences. In the Content Delivery category, judges were looking for innovation in moving content from point of origination, and its management to the consumer.

In 2015 BT Sport selected Ericsson to launch the UK’s first ultra-high definition television (UHDTV) channel. Ericsson was responsible for designing, building and running BT Sport UHD and the BT Sport Extra red button service, which enables viewers to choose between eight UEFA games broadcast live simultaneously.

Ericsson and BT Sport have been working on UHDTV together for some time. Having originally collaborated in 2013 for the first full multi-camera production of a sports event captured in 4K UHDTV, which was transmitted live internationally via satellite and fiber, Ericsson and BT showcased the first-ever live demonstration of a high efficiency video coding (HEVC) contribution link used in the delivery of 4K UHDTV at IBC 2016.

Other technical suppliers involved in the deployment include: Timeline Television, S.A.M, Sony, Fuji, Chyron Hego and Telegenic. The ceremony took place at International Broadcasting Convention, 11th September, RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre.

TVBEurope Best of Show

In other news, Ericsson’s Virtualised Live Playout service was awarded the prestigious Best of Show Award by media and entertainment industry trade title, TVBEurope.

Ericsson was recognised for its work in delivering the UK’s first virtualized live event broadcast with UKTV, the UK’s biggest multichannel broadcaster.

The Best of Show Awards honour innovation and outstanding product development and the winners are selected by a panel of judges on the final day of IBC.

The panel of judges visit the stand of every nominated product and assess each on the following criteria: ease of use/maintenance; performance against category standard; richness/relevance of the feature set; value/ROI; versatility; anticipated reliability; and originality.

Thorsten Sauer, Head of Broadcast and Media Services at Ericsson, says: “We are incredibly proud that the expertise and innovation of our team have been recognized at IBC 2016 through these two very prestigious awards. It is a great honour to work with BT Sport and UKTV and we are delighted to have played an integral role in helping them to achieve this success.”