Distributed workflows: A sustainable alternative

Live production has moved rapidly from an all-on-location workflow, where multiple sources are processed on site, to a remote model where everything is brought back to a central production facility. Staff are also no longer required to be on site at all times, making production easier for both personnel and companies.

“This has enabled several benefits for media companies,” begins Ian Wagdin, VP technology and innovation at Appear. “By centralising production, it is possible to minimise the cost of having multiple trucks at multiple events.”

Wagdin argues that the costs of transport and accommodation of kit and crew around large events is significant and skillsets vary. “By using a remote model, a single crew can work on multiple events,” he says. “As we closed the Winter Olympics, we saw a number of high-profile rights holders move to a model where more production is centralised with only essential technical kit and personnel on location.”

Wagdin notes that this model will undoubtedly continue to evolve and with the advent of more software-based and cloud production models, more benefits will be realised.

Kieran Kunhya, founder and CEO of Open Broadcast Systems, agrees that remote production is improving the way live productions are made and delivered as staff no longer need to travel long distances away from their families in order to do their jobs. It’s also allowing staff to cover multiple games in a single day where possible.

Sustainable benefits

With remote productions, there is a substantial reduction in the carbon footprint owing to reduced travel of both people and equipment to site. “Likewise, there is a greater work-life balance as many staff can be closer to their families,” says Kunhya. Both of these factors make it an attractive alternative.

Appear’s IP-based X Platform offers numerous sustainable benefits. The platform is a ground-to-ground or ground-to-cloud encoding solution that offers high quality, reliable and efficient encoding of video and audio content, enabling users to bring multiple content feeds from location to a centralised production facility.

“By proving a high-density capability (up to 96 HD video feeds in a 2RU chassis) it enables the most challenging of REMI workflows,” adds Wagdin. “It also runs an enhanced version of SRT on hardware with a maximum throughput of 6Gbps.”

All of this means that the sustainability impact of shipping racks of kit, alongside the reduced power and cooling requirements are significant.

Appear takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. “From manufacturing, where our hardware is built locally, to our head office in Oslo powered by renewable energy; from shipping where we minimise packaging, though to operational efficiency and end-of-life care, we have industry leading credentials,” explains Wagdin.

NBC Sports selected Appear’s X Platform to support its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The platform enabled high-quality video transport from Italy to US viewers. Appear’s technology provided video compression, satellite modulation and transport aggregation to deliver reliable fibre and satellite feeds during the Games.

Similarly, Open Broadcast Systems have a large client in the US that has a distributed production workflow at a huge scale. “It uses our encoders and decoders to deliver low-latency multiviews to remote production control rooms where various production operations take place,” says Kunhya.

Challenges and drawbacks

Despite all the benefits of distributed and remote workflows, there are a number of setbacks. Latency is one of the key challenges as remote production requires a level of interactive communication between the remote site and the venue.

“Connectivity for remote production is a huge challenge at certain venues,” says Kunhya. “The use of the public internet with protocols such as SRT and low-latency encoding and decoding is proving key to making sure remote production works seamlessly.”

Distributed workflows rely on connectivity to function and modern networks have evolved to support the throughput required. “However, they are often multi-path links with failure points along the way,” notes Wagdin. “Most users choose to run redundant networks to enable a dual signal path.”

For Wagdin, as the industry moves toward software-based production, he explains that perhaps the biggest challenge is enabling a computer-based asynchronous workflow from multiple linear streams and maintaining synchronisation. “Also being able to pass content between different media functions in software without reverting to a line format,” he says.

“This is why Appear has engaged in several industry initiatives such as MXL and JT-DMF,” he continues. “By leading the thinking on timing models and contributing to open source projects we can make sure we are building best of breed products for many years to come.”

As remote and distributed production continues to evolve, it is reshaping live broadcasting by reducing costs, travel and environmental impact, while enabling more flexible use of talent and resources. Although challenges around latency, connectivity and synchronisation remain, advances in IP and software-based workflows are steadily addressing them. Remote production is therefore not only more efficient, but increasingly central to the future of sustainable live broadcasting.

Check out the rest of the March 2026 Signal here.