The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) used Quantel's Newsbox to distribute near-instant Olympic highlights and two daily 30 minute highlight packages to its 60 members throughout Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East during the 2006 Winter Games.
EBU's system consisted of two six-channel Newsboxes, each with 110 hours of storage and configured as five inputs and one output, which provided the core server, storage and management. In addition, a third Newsbox with 50 hours' storage provided backup for more prominent events such as semifinals and finals. The three Newsboxes formed the core of the video and audio operations, responsible for simultaneous multichannel ingest, editing and replay.
The EBU previously used Quantel's sQ server-based system to compile daily reports for the 2004 Olympics in Athens and Euro 2004 football championships in Portugal and said it chose the Quantel based on its previous success with its news products.
"We don't want to play with dynamite. In the Games we stick to what we have planned because this is not the time for experimenting," said Fernando Pardo, head of EBU sports operations.
EBU said the openness of Newsbox and its ability to integrate with IT equipment was an additional reason for its selection.
