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Long before the Olympic Games began, wireless RF technology kept viewers abreast of the Olympic Torch’s travels through the Middle Kingdom.
The political furore that has dogged the 2008 Olympic Torch relay has overshadowed the technical accomplishments of covering the flame’s trip around the world. Typically, the coverage requires the use of cameras equipped with wireless transmitters, capable of getting live pictures back to a production van, and then out to the world via landline or satellite.
In China itself, Link wireless camera systems have been used to transmit live video from cameras covering the torch run to the world. Depending on the location, the transmitter-equipped cameras have been deployed on fixed, mobile and airborne platforms. This is no small task: Having arrived in Hong Kong on 2 May 2008, the Olympic Torch was scheduled to be run through 115 cities before arriving in Beijing for the Games’ start on 8 August.
At press time, Link wireless camera systems had been used to cover the torch run successfully in Hong Kong, Macau, Hainan and Guangdong. Still to come were live telecasts in Zhejiang, Anhul, Hunan, Guangxi, Shannxi, Inner Mongolia and Shandong.
“We’re delighted to have [had] such a successful live telecast in the first stop of the torch relay in mainland China, ” said Fu Chuan-sheng, chief engineer at the Hainan Broadcasting Television Station. “The performance of the Link system is great!”
