PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA—The 2018 Winter Olympics are finally here and NBC Olympics has officially unveiled the team that it is bringing to South Korea to provide a gold medal-worthy broadcast to viewers.
Harmonic is one of the companies tapped by NBC Olympics and will provide its MediaGrid shared storage system and Spectrum MediaDeck integrated media servers to the production. The Spectrum MediaDeck servers will enable on-the-fly capture and proxy generation for all incoming materials. The MediaGrid systems will be located inside NBC’s studios at the International Broadcast Center, as well as NBC’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters, to provide centralized shared storage and will simultaneously record as many as 60 incoming venue feeds.
Calrec Audio's digital audio consoles in the NBC Olympics studio.
On the audio side, NBC Olympics is going with Calrec Audio’s Summa, Artemis Ray and Brio digital audio consoles. The Summa console will be used for the prime-time audio control room in NBC’s studio at the IBC. A 56-fader Artemis Ray module will serve as the primary console at the sliding venues in the mountain resort of Alpensia for covering bobsled and luge events, while a 72-fader Artemis Ray will be the primary console at the speed-skating venue in Gangneung. A Calrec RP1 remote production system and Brio console will be tasked with supporting operations at the coastal studio, enabling for control from NBC’s Stamford headquarters.
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Grass Valley will be in PyeongChang, providing NBC Olympics with its SME-1901 streaming encoder to provide multiformat video/audio over IP, featuring 3G/HD/SD SDI inputs; this enables the production team to view video feeds from any camera directly, as well as edit low- and high-resolution content from a desktop or laptop. Additional Grass Valley products part of NBC Olympics’ production is the iControl customized end-to-end facility monitoring and control system; a Densité remote control panel for Densité cards; three NVision 8500 hybrid routers; NVision compact CQX router; a Lumo series high density fiber converter; and 34 Kaleido-IP multiviewers.
Avid is providing its assistance with the Avid MediaCentral platform. The MediaCentral | Production Management system will help manage content creation, automate workflows and facilitate collaboration between the Olympic venues and the IBC. MediaCentral | Asset Management will help locate media assets, streamline production operations and boost content creation capabilities. NBC Olympics will also deploy Avid Nexis, a software-defined storage platform that will be connected to editing suites with the non-linear video editing system Media Composer.
Ericsson is being tasked with providing video contribution solutions to NBC Olympics, including its AVP 2000 contribution encoders and RX8200 advanced modular receivers. The Ericsson equipment will support NBC Olympics’ video distribution of HD content over a combination of fiber and satellite. Ericsson will have specialist engineers on hand to assist with the equipment set up and to offer 24/7 support.
IP Commentary system
NBC Olympics is also bringing Lawo’s Virtual Studio Manager broadcast control and monitoring systems, as well as IP Commentary systems, for the production. The VSM system will be located at the IBC, serving as the overall control system for NBC Olympics’ core routing and tally management, connecting to multiple third party devices and to provide remote Tally information between the IBC and the Stamford headquarters. Also being managed from Stamford will be Lawo’s audio-over-IP Commentary System and several Lawo V_pro8 video processors to manage coverage. Lawo V_remote4 units will also be used to connect Olympic venues to NBC’s setup at the IBC.
Offering mobile broadcasting, engineering consultation and technical support will be NEP. NEP outside broadcast units NCP8 A and B, Iridium and Zinc, as well as associated gear and technical support, will help with live coverage of the Opening Ceremony, figure skating and short track speed skating at Gangneung Ice Arena, and hockey games at Gangneung Hockey Centre. A team of more than 30 specialists, including 15 broadcast engineers, are heading to PyeongChang to support NBC’s production.
The 2018 Winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 8-25.
