China’s Xiamen TV Picks Ross for Live 2021 Marathon Coverage

Ottawa, Canada, May 10^th 2021 – With an audience of around ten million viewers, Xiamen TV broadcasts across five main channels and serves the Southeastern Chinese port city of Xiamen and the surrounding region within Fujian province. For the inhabitants of Xiamen, one of the sporting highlights of the year is the annual marathon which has become the most famous in China and attracts elite national athletes as well as thousands of club and amateur runners.

This year’s race, accredited as a World Athletics Elite Platinum Label Road Race, was held on April 10^th and attracted twelve thousand competitors, who tackled the 42 kilometer / 26 mile course as it weaved through and around one of China’s most popular tourist cities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the event was broadcast live by Xiamen TV who commissioned a new 4K UHD OB truck specifically for the 2021 race. Ross solutions sit at the core of this new vehicle, with the Carbonite production switcher and Ultrix routing/AV processing platform performing video switching and signal processing duties, and a combination of openGear and NK router products also in the mix. For Mister Huang, Chief Engineer at Xiamen TV, the twin issues of reliability and onsite support were critical in the decision-making process. “The Xiamen marathon is an important national event in China, and our coverage of the race is seen far beyond our province,” he notes. “We knew we wanted to invest in our first ever 4K UHD vehicle for this year’s event, but we needed reassurance that the solution would be reliable and that we would have immediate access to technical support. We found the Ross sales and technical teams to be highly responsive, and we have loved working with them. They really gave us peace of mind that we were making the right choices. The Ultrix, especially, is an incredibly powerful platform that offers amazing performance for its size. Problem-solving innovation like that really makes a difference to us when we’re working in a stressful situation to tight deadlines.”

With the competitor medals distributed and the streets of Xiamen back to normal, Mr. Huang has a chance to reflect on the successful event. “I am satisfied that we made the right choice with Ross. The Ross solutions were cost-effective but, more importantly, they have been very easy to use. A marathon is often a story of personal and individual struggle. Our main focus should be on telling the story of the race and the challenges and triumphs of the participants; we shouldn’t be worrying about any of technical or ‘back room’ issues. Ross has really helped us to concentrate on content creation with complete confidence in the performance and stability of the system.”

“It’s ben a pleasure working with the team at Xiamen TV,” notes Mark Cooke, Ross Director of Sales for Asia. “They’ve invested in a powerful and highly flexible production vehicle that will deliver impressive return on investment and, like the best marathon runners, will keep on performing mile after mile.”

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