Dantoto Racing Live: The best in horse racing via
GigaContent
Dantoto Racing Live - a subsidiary of Danske Spil - is one
of Denmark's biggest producers of live television. Every day
Dantoto produces five to six hours of live broadcasting from
thoroughbred and harness racing events all over the country. Every
Wednesday 90 minutes of live coverage of the weeks V5 races is
delivered to main broadcaster TV2 Sport in full HD quality via the
GigaContent network.
The management of Dantoto Racing Live in Brøndby are not in
doubt: Live, high quality footage is a critical part of the overall
experience when betting on horses. GigaContent has been
instrumental in delivering a solution allowing Dantoto and TV2
Sport HD to work together to deliver live broadcasts from the most
attractive events in harness and thoroughbred racing.
All systems go
Dantoto is very satisfied with the stable and secure GigaContent
solution.
- We have been very happy about GigaContent's services in
connection with our partnership with TV2 Sport and TV2 Sport HD.
GigaContent have kept their promises to the letter, and we have
never had any problems, says Rolf Lau Laugesen, marketing
coordinator for Dantoto Racing Live.
Dantoto also delivers 10-12 minutes of daily, fully produced
coverage of the V5 races of the day to TV2 Sport via the
GigaContent network. The short programme, which covers the racing
highlights of the day, is broadcast in the evenings on the
SD-channel of TV2 Sports. This amounts to as much as 260 programmes
a year, Mr Lau Laugesen says.
GigaAccess in one direction
Dantoto has acquired a flexible and cost-efficient one-way
GigaAccess connection, which connects the headquarters of Dantoto
in Brøndby to the GigaContent's national grid. Usually Dantoto
employs this connection to send footage and sound in high quality
to TV2 Sport's main broadcast facility in Jenagade, Amager, south
of Copenhagen.
Technically the solution consists of an encoder for coding and
compression of video- and audio signals, and an intercom system for
internal communications. The connection has a bandwidth of 1G bit,
which makes it possible for Dantoto to send one relatively lightly
compressed HD channel and one SD channel to any destination on the
GigaContent grid.
The technical solution from GigaContent replaces a more
traditional connection, which previously was supplied by TDC. TDC
no longer supplies connections of this type.
The future: More international horse racing
Dantoto's management would also like to see the idea behind
GigaContent expanded to include services and live feeds from other
Nordic countries, including Sweden, Norway, and Finland. This would
provide Dantoto with the opportunity to expand their programming
and to offer more race coverage to Danish horse racing fans both
via TV and the Web.
- It would clearly make betting on horse racing more attractive
if we for example via the GigaContent network could get access to
live TV from the race courses in the Nordic capitals. Today it's
already possible to bet on Nordic races but without TV coverage.
Live TV always generates a lot more interest, says Mr Laugesen.
GigaContent's technical experts are now looking into the
possibilities of connecting the Danish GigaContent network to
equivalent Swedish and Norwegian networks, and expect to have
resolved the issue this year.
Dantoto Racing Live broadcasts live horse racing on their own TV
channel, which is transmitted to Danish viewers on the Canal
Digital network every day from 12 noon to 1.30 p.m. and again from
6.00 to 10.00 pm. According to Dantoto Racing horse racing in
Denmark has an approximate fixed audience of around 6.000 viewers.
The organisation is 80% owned by the Danish government, and betting
on horses represents approximately 5.5% of the organisations total
turnover.
Read more about Danske Spil and Dantoto on www.danskespil.dk.