05 Feb Case Study: Ragnarok Muay Thai Livestream
Ragnarok Muay Thai Fight Night is an amateur boxing event held in one evening. Ragnarok is a small organisation made up of passionate athletes. Their goal is to showcase and promote talent in Ireland and beyond.
Project Background
Typically, Ragnarok Fight Night events are pre-recorded and sold as video packages. This time, they wanted something special. They approached Idiosync for live multi-camera streaming services, and we were eager to help. While we didn’t start in sports video, the excitement of live events is hard to resist. The target audience for this livestream included fighters’ friends, families, other clubs, and Muay Thai fans in Ireland, the UK, and beyond. A pay-per-view livestream made sense.
The main challenge for live events is often infrastructure and bandwidth. Does the venue have a reliable hard-line internet connection? Can that connection be dedicated to the stream? Is the router accessible and stable? Is it private and not open to the public?
Idiosync has a 4G router for cases when a hard-line connection isn’t available or strong enough. However, a hard line is always preferable. This means a technical scout of the venue is necessary before the event.
Concept Development
Ragnarok knew what they needed from the start. They wanted multiple cameras, live vision mixing, and microphones for two commentators. We provided three cameras: one for the commentators and two for ringside, manned by operators. With our Blackmagic vision mixing system, we could switch between cameras during fights.
This setup allowed the online audience to stay close to the action, often offering a better view than the live audience. Ragnarok chose The Complex as their venue. A week before the event, we visited to test the hard-line internet connection for speed and stability. We aimed for at least twice the streaming bandwidth. For example, if streaming at 5 Mbps, the connection should be at least 10 Mbps.
The venue had a DJ and a great sound system for the event. However, this created challenges for isolating the commentators from the music. If the DJ played commercial music, it could interfere with the livestream. Luckily, the music played that night was safe. We also had to ensure the commentators could be heard over the music, especially if it was loud.
Pre-Production
After researching how boxing and other combat sports are filmed, we prepared our cameras, vision mixer, and sound desk. The Ragnarok team used a pay-per-view platform that provided the necessary stream keys for the livestream. We set up a test stream from our office ahead of time.
Production
Idiosync had three Panasonic 4K cameras with stabilisation, ideal for ringside filming. Our operators took their positions on platforms with stools and tripods. We relied on The Complex’s impressive lighting system, led by an in-house operator.
Before and between fights, the DJ played traditional music while the commentators discussed the matches. Each commentator had a microphone, and our vision mixer handled the live sound. We switched to the commentator camera between fights, using the ringside cameras during fights. The DJ lowered the music while we added some camera audio to capture the fighters’ strikes. We recorded in high-resolution 4K, while our vision mixer recorded in HD for streaming. We also added the pay-per-view platform’s logo for branding.
Post-Production
Ragnarok requested a simple edit for each fight, just a rough “top and tail.” We enhanced some color and sound as final touches. All footage was archived for future use unless requested otherwise.
Execution Details
We had several weeks to prepare, which allowed us to test the venue’s internet. If it hadn’t worked, we would have used our 4G router. Our production team included two camera operators and a vision mixer. Ideally, a separate sound engineer is essential for live events, but Ragnarok did not prioritise this. We managed without one, but we always