necessitates a nuanced understanding of what is physically possible. According to Andy Rayner, CTO of global broadcast technology provider Appear, the conversation must shift from an impossible ideal to an engineered reality.
“ Zero latency is physically not possible because the speed of light in fibre is only 200 kilometres per millisecond. So if you’ re 200 kilometres away, then one millisecond is the completely non-negotiable law of physics,” Andy explains. The true priority for a system like VAR is not absolute speed, but unwavering predictability across every data stream.“ Very, very low latency is not necessary. Consistent and latency alignment is important, as is the return channel as well.”
Building a resilient, high-bandwidth backbone To achieve the consistency Andy describes, the network backbone must be both robust and resilient. A single uncompressed HD video channel from a camera demands approximately 150-200 Mbps of bandwidth. With dozens of camera feeds transmitted simultaneously from a single venue, the aggregate bandwidth becomes
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