04 l July 2012
www.prosoundnewseurope.com news UNITED KINGDOM The Games: what we know (officially)
It’s not been easy, sourcing technical material in the lead up to the Games. Here’s a run down of what we can print. And – yes! – Olympic battery news
PANASONIC IS the official audiovisual sponsor for London 2012. But you wouldn’t know that from searching through the press kit: the electronics AV giant appears to be more concerned with its V than its A. Fortunately, some
information on the audio component of the broadcast coverage has been released prior to the Games. Let’s start at home with the BBC. At the heart of the last two
years’ worth of sound planning for the BBC’s coverage is Peter Bridges, BBC Studios and Post Production’s lead sound supervisor for London 2012. He and his team of 19 have the technical challenge of delivering audio content via TV (for both scheduled and on-demand TV), online and via mobile devices. “London 2012 will give audiences by far the most interactive and immersive experience that I have ever seen,” he says.
Bridges’ role also includes designing the communications system between production and technical staff, a key part of any broadcast TV facility, but especially so for a large-scale live sporting event such as this. As a rights-holding broadcaster, BBC Sport’s sound team, led by Bridges, will be based in the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in the Olympic Park in Stratford. At any one time they will receive up to 46 feeds from the host broadcaster, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), along with feeds from their own cameras and commentary microphones at the 34 venues, and feeds from their own TV studio based in the Olympic Park. As Bridges explains: “With so
many feeds coming into the IBC at any one time we need a very organised way of dealing with them so that they can quickly be available to any of our galleries at the IBC and to our VT area.” Virtually all of the BBC’s TV
coverage will originate in one of three main production galleries at the IBC. Each is equipped with its own state-of-the-art sound control room designed by Bridges specially for this event. Each control room will feature a 62-fader Studer Vista 9 console along with a Yamaha 01V96 mixer and SpotOn audio playback software. The Vista 9 will output both a 5.1 and stereo
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128 matrices fibre-linked together to provide a 512 x 512 port matrix between the IBC and the venues. In Germany, ARD Radio
covered the Euro 2012 championships, and for that purpose rented two Lawo crystal consoles, one mc256 console, and one Nova29 from Lawo’s rental partner Audio Broadcast Services (ABS). It is the same setup ARD will use to broadcast from the IBC for London 2012, Lawo reveals. Calrec Audio is supplying six Artemis consoles to US
mix, and monitoring will be via a Genelec 5.1 loudspeaker system. On top of the main broadcasts on BBC One and BBC Three, they are rolling out an extra 24 digital channels which will be populated with specific event coverage for Red Button, internet and other platforms including Virgin Media and Freesat. Each channel will carry its own stereo mix of host clean effects along with BBC commentary, mixed by two Studer OnAir 3000 consoles. Bridges continues: “Having
extra channels carrying dedicated coverage of particular events is not new for the BBC, but for London 2012 we’re providing coverage of every Olympic sport live from every venue, every day, so the scale is unprecedented.” The communications system is based on four Riedel Artist
broadcaster NBC Olympics. Two 64-fader Artemis Shine and two 24-fader Artemis Beam consoles will be used in the IBC for main feeds. The remaining two 40-fader Beam consoles will be used at the Basketball Arena in Stratford, and for volleyball at Earls Court. And! Anton/Bauer will equip NBC Olympics with Dionic HC and Dionic HCX batteries, as well as having its biggest chargers readily available – the TM4 and Dual 2722. n
www.london2012.com
www.prosoundnewseurope.com For the latest news
PA SUPPLIER RG Jones debuted its new Martin Audio MLA rig at five London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay events last month, presented by Coca-Cola. The system was acquired at the time of winning this contract: “It then became a no-brainer to launch it on these shows,” said RG Jones’ Steve Carr. “It was an
opportunity to showcase it to a number of FOH engineers, all of whom wanted to experience this pioneering system… and we received great response back.” Acts appearing at the shows included The Wanted, Friendly Fires and Dizzee Rascal.
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Photo: Bob Martin, London 2012
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