SPECIAL REPORT///
See the Sports Now Channel on
www.tvtechnology.com for more coverage of the Sochi Games and beyond.
The MAM Goes Mainstream
/// By Mark Hallinger
he XXII Winter Olympics were at once one of the hardest Olympics NBC’s team has done, and one
of the smoothest. The well-documented construction and other delays made the runup to the Feb. 7 start difficult, a situation softened by building extra time in to the schedule, getting through customs a little earlier, and so on. “It was really hard getting to
Opening Ceremony,” said David Mazza, senior vice president and CTO, NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics. “But from Opening Ceremony onward, it’s probably been one of the smoother Games.” Mazza said that once the competitions began, everybody just started doing what they normally do. “That’s where you saw the professionalism in the veterans shine,” he said. “Once they had the right tools in the right place, you turn the lights down and go on the air, they’re doing their jobs.” Sochi, more than any other
Olympic host city, was built from the ground up, added Mazza: “There’s never been an Olympics that was built so much from zero… the Russians got it done.”
THE RIGHT TOOL Having the right people in the right place is more than half of the equation. In Sochi, more than ever before, NBC Olympics also had the right tool in place. The broadcaster’s media asset management workflow— developed across six Olympics as technologies and compatibilities came online— went mainstream. Sochi was the eighth stop in NBC’s 11th consecutive Olympic Games road show, and it was a major milestone in the broadcaster’s decade-plus march toward true file-based production, shared across sites. For the first time, users at key venues, the International Broadcast Center (IBC) or based in the United States could all “remote” the broadcaster’s archive that resides within the new NBC Sports facility in Stamford, Conn., in the US. In Sochi, NBC’s commitment to and confidence in, its MAM system reached a level where the traditional “record wall” of tape or optical disc machines in a sector of the IBC that has been called “Central Videotape” for decades, was abandoned. Although the recording format has not changed since Vancouver, the record devices
David Mazza, senior vice president and CTO, NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics
Users at key venues, the Sochi IBC, or in the US could all “remote” the broadcaster’s archive
are now eight 4-channel Harmonic MediaDecks. Called simply “The MAM” by
most, the system constitutes the central part of a collaborative production workflow involving best-of-breed servers from EVS, Avid, and Harmonic, coupled with crucial software and hardware from smaller vendors.
Most editing duties were Max Negin, NBC freelance editor and replay technician, at work ////////////////12 TV Technology Asia-Pacific I April 2014
handled by 45 Avid Media Composer edit seats, aided by Avid ISIS storage and Interplay. File-based movement was handled by NBC’s Avid Media Asset Management system, ingesting video from 40 channels of Harmonic Media Decks, plus 300 TB MediaGrid storage pools located in Sochi and Stamford. All truck replays and live playback video were recorded using more than 60 EVS XT2 and (mostly) XT3 HD video servers. Several specialty vendors had important roles. Long-time NBC partner Cyradis handled device control, and fellow Canadian company File Catalyst made its NBC Olympics debut, providing file acceleration. SpectraLogic managed robotics for the LTO-5 tape library. SGL
provided the middleware that talks to the robot, and Telestream’s Vantage product did transcoding and some file- based standards conversion. Networked EVS XTs were
the basis for the playback area, where the machines’ clip transfer capability aided quick- turnaround production. All of the XTs were connected via a GigE network that also includes Avid editing systems. Avid’s DNX codec allows direct file transfer between Avid editing and EVS playback servers. EVS’ IP Director software was also used—this is essentially a database management system that can look at the content of all XTs on the EVS network for clip viewing and retrieval. Large segments of the primetime show, the lengthy sports network daypart and more saw XT3s used as traditional playback devices, controlled with both EVS LSMs and IP Director seats to build playlists. The workflow and design
was very similar to the one NBC deployed in London in 2012, but venue connectivity took a big step forward in Sochi. “For the first time, our production staff are not only pushing IP Director
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