Real-Time Match Streaming & Replay Platform

Indoor soccer facilities needed more than a scoreboard—they needed a way to run live matches with professional overlays, instant replays, and mobile viewing, without the cost or complexity of broadcast infrastructure.

I designed and built Sportbak, a distributed system that captures, enriches, and streams live matches while synchronizing scoring events across all devices in real time.

Core Capabilities

• Live video pipeline with real-time overlay rendering (score, teams, match clock)
• Event-driven match control (goals, periods, pauses) synchronized across all clients
• WebRTC-based streaming playable directly in mobile browsers
• Automatic replay generation triggered by in-game events
• Unified app for both scoring operators and viewers

Key Results

• Sub-second synchronization between scorer interface, video stream, and viewer devices
• Fully live production pipeline—no post-processing required for overlays or replays
• Resilient system design: individual services fail and recover without interrupting matches
• Delivered broadcast-like features on commodity hardware (IP cameras + embedded devices)

Architecture Overview

Sportbak is a polyglot, distributed system composed of loosely coupled services:

• Video Layer (Python + GStreamer)
  Hardware-accelerated encoding (VAAPI) with a custom overlay compositor rendering match state directly into a 1080p video stream in real time
• Session Orchestration (Node.js)
  Manages match lifecycle: periods, goals (with timestamps), timer control, and event propagation
• Broadcast Layer (Node.js + Redis + MongoDB)
  Distributes state and metadata across device channels using WebSockets / Socket.io
• Client Applications (Angular + Ionic + Capacitor)
• • Scorer interface with real-time controls and keyboard bindings
  • TV/mobile viewer with live playback via WebRTC

Technical Highlights

• Designed a cross-service WebSocket protocol linking Python and Node.js systems
• Implemented real-time overlay updates via GStreamer property bindings
• Built WebRTC signaling pipeline (SDP/ICE over WebSocket) for low-latency playback
• Enabled automatic clip extraction at goal timestamps without manual editing
• Ensured fault isolation across video capture, orchestration, and broadcast services

My Role

Owned the system end-to-end:

• Designed architecture and service boundaries
• Built the video pipeline and streaming stack
• Implemented real-time communication between services
• Developed both operator and viewer applications