46 TVBEurope The Workflow


Radio links long wave Amazon phenomenon


By David Fox


IN 2012, China’s CCTV did a very successful live broadcast of the Qian Tang wave (a powerful tidal bore). This year it wanted to repeat the experience by showcasing the world’s longest wave, the Pororoca, which takes place over three consecutive days in the middle of the Amazon jungle. To help deliver the


production, it called in two French specialists: XD Motion, to provide airborne coverage; and Actis, a Paris-based RF engineering company. CCTV wanted to follow the wave along 28km from the mouth of the Amazon to the Araguiri, one of the world’s longest rivers, and wanted to show the audience as much as possible about this phenomenon with live broadcasts each day. The main production bases


for the 85 journalists and technicians (including those from Actis, which supplied nine RF engineers), XD Motion, and SP Telefilm, a Brazilian outside broadcast company, were in two parts: on a boat, which also acted as a studio; and on a farm across the river, where Actis built a 10m high wooden tower to receive the radio signals. The distance between these was about 4km. Each location was able to send their HD programme over C Band to Beijing. CCTV wanted to transmit


pictures of the wave as it flowed up river, from two camera speedboats and a helicopter camera to the two sites — which could be 30km or more away depending on where the wave had flowed. The transmission was part of a news broadcast, so there had to be two-way communications as the news presenter in China spoke to the journalist on one of the speedboats.


Harsh environment Actis was in charge of all the RF engineering for the project, (video, audio and radio base transmissions), and had to adapt its setup to local conditions, including particularly heavy rain. Because the location was so isolated, it had to take a full


On the small speedboat, bamboo provided a lightweight antenna mount


www.tvbeurope.com July 2013


CCTV’s reporter on board the larger of the two speedboats


mobile maintenance workshop so that equipment could be repaired if needed. Heat and humidity was


difficult to cope with, both for the crew and equipment. “All the equipment was outside, so we had to get everything waterproofed and do daily


With temperatures of up to 40ºC they had to use thermal insulation to help keep equipment cool, and make equipment shockproof using Swiss Army flight cases, particularly on the boats. This paid off, as there were no problems with the equipment


XD Motion’s Cine-G gyro stabilised camera head


continually in motion, rising, falling and turning in the water. “So, we had to turn the antennae during the programme, and we also had to connect the boat to the other receive site with audio and video signals using a point-to- point Vislink system.” There


“We were used to this sort of configuration from covering cycling, marathons or news — but operating in the middle of nowhere in the Amazon was more difficult” Mathieu Rocton, Actis


maintenance,” says Actis project manager, Mathieu Rocton. “We were used to this sort of configuration from covering cycling, marathons or news, but operating in the middle of nowhere in the Amazon was more difficult.” Although Actis regularly works in equatorial Africa, “it was a much harsher environment than usual.”


during any of the live transmissions. The main problems were just those of communicating with the Chinese and Brazilian crew (and the local logistics provider), “which made it a little more difficult to do planning and co-ordinate the various crew.” One difficulty was that the studio boat was almost


were three point-to-point links to connect the receive points. They had 18 Vislink L1500


transmitters, plus 2100 HD receivers, for all the mobile cameras and backup. “We’ve always worked with Vislink equipment, for 20 years now,” he says. “The good thing with Vislink is that it’s very flexible. You can use the same


transmitter for point-to-point uplinks, in the relay helicopter or in the boat, so if something went down we always had a spare. Cobham can do that as well, but no other company that we know of. It makes it a lot easier to ensure reliability. We can take this equipment and put it everywhere,” says Rocton. “All the equipment was


brought in by boat [which is where they slept]. We didn’t have any electricity, so we had to provide everything. There were also no phone connections, so no one could use their phones,” he explains (although they did bring eight satellite phones). The French, Brazilian and Chinese teams lived together on the boat for 14 days. Sleeping in hammocks, washing in the river water, and getting food from local hunters and fishermen. The set up took five days:


one day to reach their base site, as the nearest town from


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