Sky Production Services rolls out truly safe ‘Virtual Production Suite'

Sky Production Services is proud to announce the successful roll-out of its innovative new Virtual Production Suite (Sky VPS). Created by Sky’s Technical Operations team, Sky VPS combines various technologies & areas that have been adapted, modified, and built from scratch. Providing a completely safe content production environment that supports remote working, cloud technology, and flexible scaling.

Originally mapped out for completion years down the line, Sky’s Technical Operations team decided to accelerate the development of Sky VPS due to the global pandemic and the immediate need for safe and socially distant content production.

Launched only 10 days into the nationwide lockdown, Sky VPS began its journey solely utilising a gallery box tool that connected viewers to fresh content in the absence of live sport. With the platform officially debuting on Sky’s brand-new football offering, The Football Show, and later sparking the creation of ‘watchalongs’ such as Ben Stokes’ Heroics at Headingley.

11 weeks on, Sky VPS has transformed into a holistic, scalable virtualised platform, covering not only live production such as gallery box, graphics, social media, and contribution platforms but also editing, audio & web clipping solutions, all hosted securely in a virtual private cloud.

Now, Sky VPS features a live production suite with 10 virtual control rooms linked to Sky’s MCR and integrated into Sky’s MAM, and a cloud master control with NDI routing, contribution & delivery, multi-viewers, switching, and various product integrations. Plus, 48 virtualised workstations & 48 direct to workstation connections for remote editing, and simultaneous live programming & live clipping distribution directly to social media platforms.

Fully operational via technology and devices readily available at home – laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, Sky VPS doesn’t require any equipment to be sent out and, most importantly, allows all participants to work from home and fully adhere to the Government’s health and safety guidelines.

To date, Sky VPS has been used on a total of 35 productions, including The Football Show, The Boxing Show, Brassic, Portrait Artist Of The Week and numerous watchalongs – Solheim Cup, Grand Prix alongside Felipe Massa & Jenson Button, with more than 100 people already involved in the operation of the platform. Over 200 hours of live linear transmission & 100’s of hours of pre-recorded programming have been clocked up, spanning various channels across Sky Sports, Sky News, Sky Arts. With Sky Sports Premier League’s E-Sports broadcast reaching a global audience of over 150 million viewers and live clips accumulating 85.9 million views on all platforms.

Moving forward, Sky Production Services has no plans to abandon Sky VPS post-COVID-19. The platform will continue being utilised and further developed, alongside other new technologies such as Vibox, to become an integral part of the wider aim of building better programming with a safer and more distributed system.

James Clement, Director of Operations, Sky Sports, said: ““The platform demonstrates Sky at it’s very best. Giving our teams the ability to continue working safely with innovative tech was the primary goal and the results have been super impressive.”

Ben Burdon, Studio Manager, Sky Production Services, said: “The accessibility of VPS will allow us to be inclusive of the widest possible group of creatives and technicians, enabling us to join together to make great content again wherever we are located and with whatever technology we have to hand.”