TVB Europe
More digital, more hours, more feeds – more of everything except 4K. The latest plans for the global TV event of 2016.
The planning for the host broadcast operations from Rio 2016 started soon after the city was elected as the host city in 2009. At that time 4K/UHD was a rumour but as 4K equipment has arrived and channels have launched it is still a surprise that OBS (Olympic Broadcast Service) has no plans to shoot any of the games in the format.
“The reality is that 4K is quite complicated and in the case of a host like us, where we are dealing with partners from all over the world, we need to find a common denominator [HD],” explains Sotiris Salamourist, OBS, CTO. “Even if standards were resolved tomorrow, for OBS to change the delivery mechanism to 4K would be impossible. Most broadcasters do not have the technical facility to support even simple downconversion.”
In fact, OBS has inked a deal with NHK to take the Super Hi-Vision 8K feeds the Japanese broadcaster is producing at Rio ahead of 8K domestic transmissions timed for the Tokyo Olympics 2020, and will down convert them to 4K as an offer to rights holders “to experiment with”. This won't be live, the 4K feeds will be made available a day after the event, but give OBS a workaround solution to the 4K conundrum.
Like NHK and the BBC, OBS is cooler on the prospect of 4K and seems to believe that 8K imagery with the 22.2 audio is the real game changer for future sports production.
“4K is not there today as a standard feed and we have some doubts about whether it will happen in the next few years,” says Salamourist. “8K is a different story. There has been more time to develop it [the production equipment and workflow] properly.”
So the entire coverage format remains HD-SDI 1080i/59.94 SMPTE 292 and surround 5.1. In all other parts of OBS' preparation for the summer games, there will be significantly enhanced output.
Overall coverage will total 6000 hours, 3000 hours of which is deemed “significant” by the CTO including 306 live finals across 28 disciplines. The number of feeds will increase from the 94 of London 2012 to 104. This caters for the inclusion of new sports such as rugby and golf.
OBS' aim is to provide value for money for its rights holders and to disseminate the Olympic brand as widely as possible – in order to secure future revenue generation. NBCU, for example, paid the IOC $4.38 billion to air Games from 2014-2020 and another $7.75bn for the next decade of Games from 2022.
To that end, it is creating a number of packages it will sell to broadcast licence holders.
Introduced for the first time in Rio is a Multi Clip Feeds (MCF) which is a collection of additional live feeds from venues mostly built around SSM (Super Slow Motion) and HSSM (High Super Slow Motion) cameras. The MCF will deliver up to ten concurrent feeds from 18 sports providing extra coverage of sports like handball and cycling.
The Olympic News Channel (ONC) which launched in Beijing 2008 has seen its output increased significantly in the intervening period. From Rio, programming ranges from athlete profiles, to feature length background material and mix zone interviews to behind the scenes clips. The OBS team will also attempt to film interviews with each of the 953 medalists.
All 350 hours of content will be made available around-the-clock to rights holders
as a playlist of clips that will be replaced and updated though the day. The playlist includes video IDs of all material within the running order to make search easier.
The Multichannel Distribution System (MDS) offers broadcasters a choice of 12 channels, six of which are fully programmable. Alongside live feeds the MDS includes the MCF, the OBC, a data feed and a feed of media conferences. “This is a turnkey solution for rights holders to fully produce their entire coverage of the Games while significantly reducing staffing and on-site costs and significantly increases choice to audiences,” says Salamourist.
The MDS debuted in Beijing and was picked up by 11 broadcasters. In London that figure rose to 14; in Sochi it was 31 and a whopping 52 are already signed up for Rio making it “the dominant way rights holders want to receive Olympics content.”
The IOC are billing Rio as the first real multi-screen games where OBS will provide broadcasters with additional material - realtime statistic feeds, different angles, super slo-mo sets - which can be packaged as a second screen experience.
Sochi marked the first time the amount of digital coverage worldwide (60,000 hours on 230 dedicated digital channels – including 155 websites and 75 apps) exceeded that of linear broadcasts (48,000 on 464 channels), aided according to OBS by the introduction of digital delivery platform Olympic Video Player (OVP). Digital exploded for the youth games held in Nanjing 2014 when 200 broadcasters chose the ability to stream coverage online. This innovation is credited with extending the reach of the Games further into Africa and Asia.
“Sochi showed that the consumption of an Olympic games on mobile and tablets is now as intense as that of traditional TV,” says Salamourist. “Digital is no longer marginal.”
Key to the OVP and the ability for broadcasters to offer web content, second screen and VOD services, is data - another aspect which is being ramped up. The Broadcast Data Feed (another acronym – BDF) supplies video logs and scripts and competition information such as weather, start lists, results, and athlete information.
“Every event and session is logged in realtime so rights holders can access it instantly. The transmission schedule can be configured to suit needs and there are alerts when competitors from a chosen country are performing,” he says.
All of this activity will be corralled at the International Broadcast Centre at the Barra Olympic Park in a 85,400 sqm space that houses technical and admin facilities for both OBS and the rights holders, including edit suites, control rooms, studios and offices.
Unlike the FIFA World Cup production from Brazil, which sited static Technical Operations Centres at each of the country-wide venues to cut down travel cost and time, OBS has booked 60 individual trucks from Brazil, North America and Europe. The logistics of pre-testing equipment and workflows and transporting them to Rio will still be considerable.
The BBC's plans are well advanced, however, it won't yet be taking many of the pre-pack services OBS offers. It has its own digital platform for example, and – while interested in the MDF for future Games – for Rio it will be organising a somewhat traditional outside broadcast.
It will take over space in the IBC for gallery, post, engineering, graphics (provided by Deltatre) and radio with presentation from a studio on Copacabana beach.
“We're generally taking OBS' raw coverage supported with our own ISO cameras on events like athletics to tailor coverage to a UK audience,” explains Jonny Bramley, executive producer, major events, BBC. “As with London, we're embedding some presenters in venues to capture feeling of being live at the event especially when we think there's a team GB medal winner.”
Feeds will be satellite routed to Broadcasting House, transmitted via Red Bee with the digital output sent via Salford in a similar circuitry to its production of the Brazil World Cup.
“London 2012 is our starting point,” says Bramley. “You can't go backwards – we have to fulfil a raised audience expectation which means all sports with commentary, but we've also got to bare cost in mind. So, we are attempting to do the same for less budget.”
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