September 2012
www.tvbeurope.com
NBC had some 2,800 people in London plus 700 in New York for the Games
File fetch and carry
WITH SO much content to collate, NBC had a team of five Fetchers to find files, whether in London or New York, on the Media Grids or EVS systems, create clips and do standards conversion. “It means editors can get on with editing while the Fetchers fetch,” said Adams. “We have a crew in New
York, at 30 Rock, and we can’t have everybody out here. Primetime and Daytime are done here, back at home we have MSNBC, NBC Sports, CNBC, Bravo,” said Fetcher/AP, Katie Morgan. Fetchers were first used in 2008
and have access to all the melts (ISO feeds, such as high speed cameras) and features (some of which are created at the venues), push them to the different
an additional 50-plus operators had access. The data pipe was large enough for the first time to move both high-res and proxies. It meant NBC could archive to an LTO robot in Stamford as it came in, and “whether you’re in London, New York, or elsewhere, if you have the rights, you can access the full archive online.” At the IBC, HD streams went into 32 XDCAM XDS-PD1000 Media Stations, each with 1TB of storage, an XDCAM drive and Ethernet, for FTPing high-res and low-res versions to the Media Grids. The resulting files were 50Mbps XDCAM, NBC’s production and archive format. NBC has clients using the system plus multiple news outlets. “So, the faster you get the material into archive, the more valuable it is,” said Adams. The two main Media Grids in
use for the Games will become the central store in Stamford, where it will have 10 4-channel 1RU Media Deck 7000 devices for ingest.
London bottlenecks “Can you think of a worse place to test all your new equipment than the Olympics,” but “that type of testing and discovery is invaluable,” said Adams. The system worked, but there were bottlenecks, and over the course of the Games NBC came up with improvements that will be useful for the new 24/7/365 facility. “This is the first Olympics
that NBC has aggressively used IP infrastructure. All the
TVBEurope 13 London 2012 News & Analysis
Find and retrieve: Fetchers, such as Katie Morgan (right in picture), “helped immensely with workflow”
departments (who can’t otherwise see them) and load them into the Media Grids. Their highlights and clip clearing house also has a
delivery is IP, as is content creation — both the Highlights Factory (Avid MAM and Media Grid) and the EVS IPDirector set up. The two separate file-based workflows use Media Grid as the central repository, while the Avid MAM knows about the content on the EVS systems. It is significantly integrated from the metadata standpoint.”
couple of staff responsible for NBC promos. “It has helped immensely with workflow,” said Adams. — David Fox
The Avid MAM was considerably enhanced for the Games, with lots of interconnections with Interplay PAM, enhanced archive tools, and a new viewer that offers more efficient clip selection. The EVS system was used mainly to create clip packages for live shows, and the Avid MAM tool for more finished clips.
NBC also had three A
venues (athletics, swimming and gymnastics) with standalone outside broadcast units and cameras but also taking ISO feeds of all the OBS cameras, sending only the programme feed to the IBC. Each had a smaller Media Grid controlled via local EVS units. The additional storage meant that each OB could
Lights, camera, action
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Grid pattern: One of NBC’s large Harmonic Media Grids in the IBC
store the entire event while wiping each EVS system after a day’s competition. At the IBC, NBC had two studios (15x15m and 12x12m). For efficient construction, it uses eight RIBs (Racks In a Box). These pre-wired units were used for the first time at Sydney, fit in a 20ft ISO sea container and contain 20 racks (10 each side).
See Argosy at IBC stand no. 10.C51
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