Live events5 min read

The final whistle shouldn’t start a second shift. How the MediaCore2 event lifecycle turns a broadcast into a published replay — even when the stream dropped twice on the way.

Live events

On most platforms, the final whistle starts a second shift. Stop the recording. Find the file. Download it, upload it again, retype the title, dig out the poster, set the price, publish — then remember to take the “Live tonight” banner off the homepage. Somebody does all of that at midnight, or it doesn’t get done.

That job shouldn’t exist. An event already knows its title, its teams, its artwork, its description, its category and how it’s sold. A replay is the same thing, later. So on MediaCore2, the replay publishes itself.

Four states, no hand-offs

Every event moves through the same lifecycle, and it moves on the clock — not on somebody remembering.

  1. 1
    Scheduled

    The event page exists from the day you create it: a countdown people can share, a homepage hero banner and a programme-guide slot, all kept in sync with the event.

  2. 2
    Live

    At the start time the countdown gives way to the player on its own. Nobody waiting on the page has to refresh.

  3. 3
    Ended

    When the end time passes, the page retires and drops out of the live listings, the hero banner and guide slot come down, and every simulcast destination is torn down.

  4. 4
    Replay published

    An on-demand entry appears with the artwork, description, category and access inherited from the event — except that a replay opens free or to subscribers, so a ticketed event’s replay asks for a plan. The recording is attached, and the replay goes public as soon as it lands.

Ending isn’t deleting. The event stays in your events list with its details intact; it simply stops being something anyone can press play on. That holds even for a viewer who left the watch page open. The player gives way to an “Event ended” panel, they’re taken back to the event page, and its Watch button has already become an “Event ended” label. Nobody is left staring at a frozen frame, wondering whether the stream died or they did something wrong.

Three takes, one replay

Live broadcasts break. The venue connection drops in the second quarter, the encoder reconnects, and the stream comes back a few minutes later as a brand-new recording. On most platforms that leaves you with three files and a question nobody wants at 23:00: which one is the game?

MediaCore2 treats every recording that belongs to an event as part of the same replay. A broadcast recorded in three takes becomes one on-demand entry with Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, in order — shown as a strip of cards under the player, with the current one badged “Now playing”. The viewer watches a game, not a folder. Nobody uploads anything.

A replay is the event, later. It shouldn’t need a second person to make it.

Whichever way the signal came in

There are three ways to feed a live event, and all three end in the same catalogue. What differs is the moment the replay goes public.

How the event went liveWhat happens when it ends
Encoder push from OBS, vMix or a hardware encoderThe recording becomes the replay and publishes as soon as it lands.
Unattended automated cameraThe camera records its whole scheduled window, and that recording becomes the replay.
A camera feed already on the platformThe replay is prepared with everything the event knew, and held back until a recording is attached.

What you still control

Automation that overrides people gets switched off by the people it overrides. So the lifecycle is built to step aside when you step in:

  • Hide a replay and it stays hidden. A later part arriving won’t publish it again.
  • Edit the replay’s description or access without touching the event it came from.
  • Upload your own poster and it stays. Generated artwork — built from team names, colours and crests when nobody uploaded one — never overwrites anything a person put there.
  • Find the replay in the same category as the event, so it lands where your viewers already look.

Picture the night it matters

A regional semi-final, pushed from OBS on a laptop at the top of the stand over a borrowed connection. The event page has been counting down all week. Everyone who saved it got a reminder 15 minutes before kick-off, and another the moment it went live.

The connection drops twice — once in the second quarter, once late in the third. Each time, the encoder reconnects and the broadcast carries on.

The final whistle goes. Nobody opens the Studio. The page retires, the homepage banner comes down, the simulcast to YouTube stops, and the replay appears in the on-demand catalogue: three parts, in order, with the event’s artwork, description and access. By the time the crew has packed the van, the work is done.

Read ending an event & publishing the replay for the details, or see everything else a live event does for you.

The MediaCore2 team · 28 July 2026
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