With the Olympics in London, the BBC as rights-holding broadcaster for the UK has a special responsibility. It has seized the opportunity presented by digital broadcasting to make a unique claim: every event will be broadcast live. Dick Hobbs visited the Olympic Park as the BBC’s installation in the IBC was being completed to see how this will be achieved
INEVITABLY IN a project like this it is the numbers that are staggering. The BBC production area has around 200 incoming circuits from all the venues, and from two dedicated studios. Each venue has the multi-lateral feed, created by Olympic Broadcast Services, and these are directly routed into the BBC centre. At many events the BBC will
have its own unilateral feeds to tailor the content for British viewers. Some will be from BBC operated outside broadcast trucks; some from one or two camera units for local presentation. The fact that all these feeds will
be arriving over different fabrics, and given the fact that the satellite bandwidth is likely to be crowded, was one of the causes for concern at the design stage. Each incoming feed needs to be checked for quality control, and passed through timebase correctors and other processing to ensure everything is synchronised by the time it reaches the production staff. At the other end of the
operation there are up to 24 parallel outputs, to meet the goal of covering every event. Through careful negotiations with Sky for satellite, Virgin for cable and Freeview for terrestrial, as far as possible these are all independent channels on the EPG rather than red button services. According to
Under construction: Early July view of studios being built on
the BBC this will make it easier for viewers to find their preferred sport, and to record it if they cannot watch it live. As well as dedicating channels
to Greco-Roman wrestling and synchronised swimming, the BBC is also presenting packaged programming on two of its channels. BBC One will carry the main Olympic coverage, with a second live programme running on BBC Three. These will be presented from
two studios built on top of a temporary structure at a crossroads in the Olympic Park, around 500m from the BBC’s part of the IBC. For BBC One there is a large glass box. BBC Three has an outdoor presentation space to feel more a part of the atmosphere.
Back in the IBC there are
separate production control rooms for BBC One and BBC Three, each with a Sony production switcher and a separate audio room with a Studer mixer. There is a third gallery with similar hardware to allow for other productions from around the site, and for news use. The fourth main output area is
responsible for all the other streams, which inevitably is much more about routing the right feeds to the right outputs, maintaining seamless presentation and overseeing quality. Most of the feeds from venues for these channels will arrive complete with BBC commentary, but where the need arises there are a couple of “off the tube” rooms for local voiceovers.