July 2012
www.tvbeurope.com
London Games: There will be 0.5 billion digital-only users on the official sites
Akamai is the CDN with
responsibility to deliver this massive potential demand allied with Microsoft’s cloud-based Windows Azure Media Services platform. Microsoft previously used the occasion of an Olympic Games to help roll out its web development tool Silverlight, during Beijing, and adaptive Smooth Streaming technology, around Vancouver. “We are doing something the
equivalent of going from zero to 1,000kmph overnight,” says Quinn. “We can scale big but we need something to scale bigger. Turning on the Azure cloud means we are able to scale quickly without investing in infrastructure that will be used for a limited period of time.”
Video services Core to deltatre’s offer is DIVA (Data Integrated Video Application), which unites realtime data with PVR-style
“We are doing something the
functionality and was originally tested during the Beijing Games. deltatre has since spent over $2 million developing the platform, which was adapted for BBC, NBC, CTV and NRK’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and for Sky Sports Champions League coverage 2010-2011. It was also used by UEFA during the Euro 2012 Championships. “What is unique about DIVA is the fact that data and video are baked together,” explains Jim Irving, head of Video and Commercial in relation to work deltatre has done for Sky. “We believe sports fans no longer want clips. They want the option of seeing the whole match live or VoD, to go back and see key highlights while the game is still playing, to see heat maps, player tracking data, goal stats, team sheets. They want to navigate between live and VoD so that if they join in 20 minutes late they can catch up on all the action. DIVA does this.” Users of the Sky Sports
branded DIVA service reportedly watch on average 40 minutes of video and interact with it every two minutes. For many customers like
France Télévisions, DIVA will be used during the Olympics to combine rights holding broadcaster’s (RHBs) own
equivalent of going from zero to
1,000kmph overnight. We can scale big but we need something to scale bigger” Ciaran Quinn
linear channels with up to 24 multilateral online streams and live sports data. deltatre will take the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) provided video and audio IP feeds from the IBC, encode them using Elemental Technologies encoders and integrate them with data collected by ATOS Origin and Omega on behalf of OBS.
“The 2012 Olympics features 10,000 athletes, 26 medal events, 200 countries, thousands of hours of video over 17 days, so how does a fan know what is going on?” asks Quinn. “Normally you are guided by the integrated feed provided by a broadcaster, which is fine, but consumers today want the ability to dive deeper into their favourite sport and to keep abreast of events as they happen.” That’s where the Olympic
data feed containing over 10 million unique data points comes in. “Being able to present that with graphic overlays on video and realtime data in web pages in a presentable fashion in
the right place, at the right time so that the consumer can understand it is a big challenge,” he says. “That’s what we have been working on since the Beijing Games. And we have solved the problem using DIVA and our
Results Platform.” A version of DIVA
optimised for tablets and smartphones, OVA
(Olympic Video Applications), integrates live sports data with the viewing experience, including live standings, team stats and game scoring. Every single result for every
single event, including split times and detailed statistics will be available on broadcaster websites adapted for PC, tablet and smartphone. In addition there will be direct links to live and VoD content. “Watching sports via digital
devices is not about just streaming video; it’s about giving the fans a complete experience bringing together photos, articles, interactive schedules, and detailed, interactive results, as well as social aspects and a feeling of community,” says Quinn. “The IOC has the challenge
of working with official RHBs so that they can better cater to changing consumer demands while still maintaining the Olympic ideals. Considering that computer tablets are only two years old and smartphones are only five years old, yet broadcast deals are signed many years in advance of the Games, this is not at all an easy task.”
TVBEurope 45 London 2012 Countdown Ciaran Quinn: “This
has never been done before in the history of sports”
Broadcast Rental installs Hub for London Games
By Jake Young
NETHERLANDS-BASED Broadcast Rental has built a video routing network based around the Blackmagic Universal Videohub for use by Dutch Broadcaster NOS at the 2012 London Games. The Universal Videohub is being used by NOS to distribute key highlights and games footage from their media headquarters at the game’s International Broadcast Centre (IBC) to other Dutch Olympic facilities. The video routing solution will also be used by the broadcaster at the centre of operations in the IBC, a 24-hour media hub for around 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and journalists. Controlled via PC touchscreen monitors, the Universal Videohub will take in all signals from the Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) and will distribute the signals to the Holland Heineken House, Medal
Plaza, and to storage at the IBC. The signal will be locked and ingested via an EVS XT and IPDirector workflow to an Avid Unity System before it is packaged up with Avid Media Composer. The final output is then routed back through the Universal Videohub before being distributed to the Netherlands broadcast network and other Olympic screening facilities. “Blackmagic’s Universal
Videohub, as a routing matrix, will sit at the heart of our Olympic operations. Every audio and video signal will go via this router,” said Geert Paul Slee of Broadcast Rental. “We wanted to use the Universal Videohub in particular for this job because it is completely customisable, can be controlled wirelessly and fits easily into small spaces, which makes it a very cost effective solution when you are using a piece of kit for multiple customers.”
www.blackmagic-design.com
Polecam extends reach to London 2012 Games By Jake Young
UK FIRM Polecam will supply its lightweight portable cranes for the host broadcast feed of the London Olympics, which will be viewed all over the world. In all, nine Polecams will be supplied to Camera Corps. Polecam was also used extensively during the construction phase of the Games infrastructure to provide images of the sporting facilities as they were completed. Polecams will be
deployed at the opening and closing ceremonies, aquatic centre, velodrome and all the big outside races including the walking, cycling, triathlon and marathon. Two of the company’s Fish
Face underwater systems will be used at the aquatic centre and cranes are also booked to cover the gymnastics, white water canoeing and equestrian events too. Polecam’s Managing
Director and owner-inventor,
Polecam was used to film shots during the construction phase of the Olympic facilities
Steffan Hewitt, said: “It’s compact with a very low profile so it’s very unobtrusive. You only need one man per crane for one day and he can shoot in multiple locations which is a great advantage for organisers of highly-complex sporting events.”
www.polecam.com
Photo credit:
www.pedestaltv.com
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