Have you had an plans on offering the possibility to watch competetiv league of legends with higher res? As it gets more and more common, for on thing I know that I would love to be able to watch the games on my ultrawide in 2k. 4k on my tv is a bit rough to watch live so I can understand that, but it should be possible to offer it when the games get reupploaded on youtube.
Thanks for the great question and sorry for the delay in response. High res broadcasts - YES! absolutely on our road map but it's a little complicated and a few things to consider. First topic is bitrate vs resolution and each have important roles in contributing to viewing experience. We live in an exclusively digital world so the total bits/second is really important because it relates directly to the perceived crispness and detail of the rift, especially during constant complex motion and champion ability particle effects. We hope you have noticed a marked quality increase in the last year. This is because we are now approved by the major platforms to dramatically increase the bitrate and have installed new equipment that can handle 1080p60 gameplay.
Next is resolution, which is tied to your question. Sure, we'd love to kick it up to 4k but there are a bunch of serious considerations. First is that the game itself is not natively in 4k so we'd be up-converting from the start. We are investigating higher res options but not native yet. Second, without sufficient bitrate from Youtube and Twitch there would be a huge 4k frame but look like a big mess. 4k also requires 4x the bandwidth to send to you at home and a lot more onsite with the number of cameras we have. Finally it also requires an overhaul of our control room switcher and equipment.
So, yes, we are excited to see progress on resolution and in fact testing it behind the scenes as we speak but have committed to a push for bitrate increase first. While we are not quite ready to adapt 4k to bigger events like Worlds quite yet, some of our studios are looking at UHD in the near future so stay tuned because I promise we will get there.
