Champagne, Cables and Codec Errors

Every year – just about – Bridge Technologies puts on a show. It’s loud. It’s glamorous. There are tuxedos. There’s Tim, Gry and Philip doing their level best to keep the whole thing on cue, on time and entertaining. And of course, there’s the Bridge team in the green room and our Heads of Regional Sales in the award winner’s lounge, frequently acting as the main agents of mischief.

But don’t be fooled by the sparkling champagne and sparkling wit. Behind the sequins and the streaming overlays lies something far more fundamental to who Bridge Technologies is: a deep commitment to developing tools not in isolation, but in contact—with our partners, with our products, and with the unpredictable atmosphere of the real world.

Not Just Awards

This year marked the 19th (give or take) Bridge Awards – a tradition that gives us a chance to celebrate the amazing work done by our partners around the world. From Slovakia’s Sunteq, named Innovator of the Year, to our friends at 2110 Solutions in the US, taking home Business Partner of the Year, these awards recognise the value of collaboration, openness and long-term trust.

Of course, we could simply email them a certificate. But where’s the fun in that?

Instead, we choose to turn our appreciation into an actual event. A proper, live-streamed, multi-camera, ST 2110-endorsed, nerve-wracking, bell-ringing production. And why? Because it’s the perfect excuse to put our own equipment to the test.

Testing by Firelight (and Stage Light)

This year’s show was produced using the full might of our own VB440 and extensive range of distribution monitoring probes. We captured, analysed and quality-controlled the show using the same gear our customers rely on: whether they operate in Tier One broadcast environments, or in smaller, niche operations: though we know of none quite as niche as the Bridge HQ basement, which we’re fairly certain was never designed for live video production (as quaint and cosy as it is).

And that’s the point. All manufacturers test their tools. All of them claim their kit works – ‘in real-world conditions’. But there’s a difference between testing in simulation, and testing for real – when someone forgets to switch the audio feed, when your Head of Marketing is about to miss their cue because they’ve run downstairs for more champagne, or when your producer accidentally stumbles into the rack (which, blessedly, with a VB440, now contains significantly fewer pieces of expensive equipment for them to mangle).

Of course we’re kidding, Damian, Denise (directing), Martin (on audio) were all consummate professionals, and there were no missed switches or destruction of equipment. But the point is that there could have been, because these aren’t technological tests. They’re psychological ones.

Can you find the waveform whilst trying to clear last year’s expense reports and 52 Bridge Tech mugs full of half-drunk coffee from your desk? Can you trust your AV Sync tools when your adrenaline is at 140 bpm and someone’s shouting “We’re live in five”? Can you use your own UI instinctively, without thinking about it? That’s what we’re measuring.

The Serious Side of Play

Among the many feats pulled off during this year’s Bridge Awards was our live use of the VB440’s latest party trick: AV Sync. Now, syncing audio and video might sound like a fairly basic task – we’ve all clapped in front of a webcam before – but in the world of live, distributed IP production, it’s less ‘tap and go’ and more ‘tap and pray’.

Traditionally, AV synchronisation has been one of broadcasting’s great fiddly frustrations. Between SDI workflows (where signals are constantly being pulled apart and put back together) and ST 2110 setups (where audio and video packets wander off like teenagers at a music festival), it’s hard to know exactly when things are supposed to land. Broadcasters have been relying on manual cues, packet timestamps, or just squinting at lip movement and hoping for the best.

Not anymore.

This year, the VB440 debuted its content-driven AV Sync feature. Instead of relying on packet timestamps or ‘just eyeball it’ guesswork, the VB440 sync tool embeds clever little markers directly into the content – visual and audio cues that say “I belong here, not three frames to the left.” There’s a rolling shutter pattern, a blink-and-beep signal, plus support for logos and various colour bars, not to mention an interface that somehow manages to be both technically advanced and logical to navigate. And it worked perfectly – even as Olli and Oliver embarked on a victory dance on stage in their best efforts to hoard awards. The on-screen patterns showed us exactly where sync was landing, and the system constantly tracked every frame – and could have done across more than 40 supported resolutions and frame rates, though with the production we stuck with what makes YouTube happiest.

The result? Flawless sync. No lip-flap, no guesswork, no. Just perfectly aligned video and audio, even from the basement.

Thank You, Partners and Customers

Of course, the whole thing wouldn’t be worth doing if we didn’t get to recognise the amazing companies we work with. Whether it’s SHM Broadcast winning Communicator of the Year, or Burst Video taking home the award for Technology Project Implementation, our partners are the reason we get to play, test, invent, refine – and do it all with a glass of something fizzy in hand.

In Conclusion: Long Live the Basement

We know we’re not a production house. That’s not our bread and butter. Indeed, our job is to actually build the bread slicing machines. But once a year, we set the table anyway – and use the occasion to push our tools, challenge our assumptions, and remind ourselves that innovation isn’t something you do to the world. It’s something you do in it.

And sometimes, that means tuxedos.

Watch the Bridge Awards 2025 – Bridge Technologies YouTube Channel