Worlds 2017: Tech Issues on Quarterfinals Day 4

On the fourth day of Worlds 2017 Quarterfinals, we experienced audio issues on the International and English stream feeds during the first game of Cloud9 vs Team WE. Due to the noticeable impact on the broadcast, we wanted to provide a brief technical explanation of what happened and how we worked to resolve the issue.

At the beginning of the day we suffered from a card failure on the audio console in the Central TV truck, which impacted caster and in-game audio. Failures like this are rare but very impactful for the entire audio setup. When the primary audio console began to show signs of failure, we made the decision to copy the configuration from the failing console to a secondary audio console under the control of the master console. This decision would allow us to effectively restore functionality as quickly as possible, causing the least amount of disruption time.

Full functionality came online in stages during the day’s first three games. By the fourth game, we routed the main truck console through the international feed desk, effectively restoring complete show control to the primary audio console. We’re exploring a variety of ways to resolve this for the semifinals, including replacing the audio console entirely.

We sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding while we worked to resolve this issue.