As Brazil limbers up for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, NBC Olympics (a division of the NBC Sports Group) has announced its use of Calrec mixing, Lawo’s Virtual Studio Manager Broadcast Control & Monitoring and Audio-Technica microphones, broadcast headsets and monitor headphones for the production.
Calrec Audio has supplied four Artemis and three Summa audio mixing consoles to provide full audio mixes for the Rio Games coverage. Three of the 40-fader Artemis consoles will be stationed at NBC fly-pack venues to provide coverage of basketball, cycling, triathlon, marathon, volleyball, and diving.
The fourth console will be installed in Audio Control Room X in the Compound at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Rio. This console will be in use with venues moving audio and video over IP. One 24+8-fader Summa console will provide the main output in Audio Control Room X, while the remaining two will act as back up consoles in Audio Control Rooms A and B.
‘This year is the first time we are connecting with Dante on the Hydra2 network, and we are delighted to continue this strong innovative relationship as NBC Olympics continues to push the boundaries of sports audio,’ says Dave Letson, VP of Sales at Calrec.
With the selection of Lawo’s Virtual Studio Manager (VSM) and its LCU, Lawo’s IP Commentary System, NBC Olympics will achieve enhanced control at both the NBC Olympics production compound within the International Broadcast Center in Rio, and for the NBC Olympics’ studios in Stamford, Connecticut.
VSM will be the overall control system for NBC Olympics’ core routing and tally management, connecting to multiple third-party devices on an IP backbone, using approximately 80 LBP hardware panels and 80 GUI-based VSM Panels accessed from monitors and tablets to be used throughout NBC Olympics’ various production facilities.
‘In going through the collaborative design process with NBC Olympics, it was critical that we had the ability to customise the overall system to support the workflows they wanted, while also providing the flexibility to grow the system as technologies evolve in the future,’ Lawo VP of Sales, Mark Whitman. ‘We’re pleased to have the opportunity to work with NBC Olympics from the design stage all the way through to implementation, and use a range of Lawo products and software to create an innovative remote production solution that addresses NBC Olympics’ objectives for these games, and can also continue to evolve and support new workflows.’
‘The Lawo VSM system gives us extensive control of not only our core signal routing, but also a wide range of third-party devices, allowing disparate systems to be operated from a unified control surface,’ adds Lukas Zahas, Manager of Broadcast Technology, NBC Olympics. ‘The ability to fully customise interfaces enables intuitive control of complex and unique workflows, and ensures the system can adapt to our future needs.’
NBC Olympics will also use a Lawo audio-over-IP Commentary System along with several Lawo V_pro8 video processors to manage their coverage from Stamford. The V__pro8s will receive video feeds from Rio, de-embed the audio and then insert into Ravenna and Madi streams that will feed the Lawo LCU commentary system for up to 20 announcers’ positions covering various sports. In addition, several venues in Rio will be connected to the NBC Olympics compound within the International Broadcast Center with Lawo’s V__remote4 units to provide connectivity and processing for network audio and video signals delivered via IP-connections from the remote sites.
‘This provides unprecedented flexibility, greatly simplifies the deployment time and provides a rich feature set for our announce systems,’ says Timothy Canary, VP of Engineering at the NBC Sports Group headquarters. ‘The seamless integration of Lawo’s audio and video hardware, using IP-based audio combined with innovative software control provides NBC with a complete end-to-end solution.’
In addition, NBC Olympics has selected RTS to provide broadcast intercom systems and support – representing the first use of RTS Omneo technology at the Games. The RTS equipment list for NBC’s Olympics coverage in Rio is extensive, including Omneo, RVON, IP trunking Adam intercom matrix and intercom panels.
Audio-Technica products, meanwhile, will capture and monitor the audio aspects of the games, from the sounds of the competition itself, to the related crowd noise, experts’ analysis and athlete interviews.
Audio-Technica’s BP4027 and BP4029 Stereo Shotgun Microphones will be mounted on cameras to closely follow the action; AT4050ST Large-Diaphragm Stereo Microphones and BP4025 X/Y Stereo Microphones will capture ambience from the games’ various venues to create a realistic surround bed for the broadcast; BPHS1Broadcast Stereo Headsets will be worn by announcers in audio-over-IP venues to provide considerable separation between their voices and the ambient sound; BP4001 Handheld Cardioid Dynamic Microphones will be used for interviews; and ATH-M50xProfessional Monitor Headphones will be used in edit rooms, for monitoring RF mic receivers and submix consoles, and for other critical listening applications. These are just some of the equipment and solutions that Audio-Technica will supply.
‘We are proud of our role in the continuing development of broadcast audio technology, an evolution that has made stereo microphones an integral part of broadcast audio capture. And we look forward to providing new solutions for capturing high-quality audio in the future as the industry continues to raise the bar,’ says Michael Edwards, VP of Product & Market Development at Audio-Technica US.
‘We look forward to using the latest advancements in Calrec processor technologies, as well as newly updated interfaces, which have been developed based on our feedback and the feedback of many Calrec users worldwide’ says Karl Malone, Director, Sound Design, NBC Sports & Olympic. ‘And NBC has relied on Audio-Technica to help us capture the real sounds of the Olympic Games and the atmosphere surrounding those events. Audio-Technica has consistently helped NBC meet that goal, and we look forward to doing the same this year.’
Linear Acoustic will provide audio upmixing for NBC Sports & Olympics in the form of more than 40 UPMAX v4 units, along with remote control. Linear Acoustic is also providing MT2000 Multichannel Bitstream Analyzers and on-site technical support.
‘Linear Acoustic has been part of delivering engaging 5.1-channel surround experiences to NBC’s viewers of the Olympics since the Beijing Games in 2008, and we are excited to be a part of that experience again in Rio de Janeiro,’ says Linear Acoustic founder, Tim Carroll.
NBC Olympics has also selected Harmonic MediaGrid shared storage system and Spectrum MediaDeck integrated media servers for its production of the Games. The systems will be used in critical production areas – ten global locations serving broadcast, on demand, digital, news operations, and long-term archiving. This wide-area production model offers cost-effective content creation by helping NBC Olympics maintain a portion of its operation in the US.
The broadcasting will use systems installed at the NBC Olympics production compound in the IBC in Rio to enable NBC Olympics to offer high volumes of timely content on multiple television channels. Incorporating MediaGrid ContentStore 5840 high-density storage nodes, the system will provide centralised shared storage, and facilitate on-the-fly capture and proxy generation for all incoming materials.
MediaDeck media servers will simultaneously record as many as 60 incoming venue feeds as both XDCAM-HD at 50Mbps and H.264 low-resolution proxy. These systems also will give NBC Olympics personnel at the Stamford facility independent control over 60 additional channels of local ingest. Each recording's proxy will be replicated in near real time on a 960TB Harmonic MediaGrid storage system connected via two 10Gigabit circuits to a second 920TB MediaGrid installed in Stamford. In less than a minute, content created on the Rio MediaGrid system will be replicated on the Stamford MediaGrid system.
‘We are counting on Harmonic systems as part of our high- and low-resolution workflows. From ingest through media storage, MediaGrid and Spectrum systems are the backbone of our content acquisition and production workflows,’ says Darryl Jefferson, VP of Post Production Operations for the NBC Sports Group.
Content creation and media management
NBC Olympics has also selected the Avid MediaCentral Platform to support content creation and media management workflows for the event. The implementation will be the largest and most comprehensive to date, and includes a range of solutions built upon the Avid MediaCentral Platform.
The Avid MediaCentral Platform is the foundation of the Avid Everywhere, and is composed of four powerful product suites that will enable NBC Olympics to streamline its workflow, from media creation and collaboration, to delivery – this marks the ninth consecutive NBC Olympics/Avid partnership since the Sydney Games in 2000.
Avid Interplay Production will help NBC Olympics to manage content creation, automate workflows, and empower collaboration across multiple production facilities worldwide. Avid Interplay MAM media asset management will enable teams to find assets quickly, streamline media operations, and make the most of revenue opportunities. Avid MediaCentral UX provides a unified, web-based user experience for all production tasks, enabling NBC Olympics to work quickly, with greater efficiency and flexibility.
‘We will need to create, manage, distribute, and monetise an extraordinarily large amount of content,’ Jefferson says. ‘The Avid MediaCentral Platform allows our team members in multiple locations to collaborate in real time, providing us with the capacity to create high-quality content quickly and efficiently.’
The NBC Olympics production compound within the IBC in Rio will be equipped with Avid Media Composer editing systems connected to an Avid Isis 7500 shared storage system with 512TB of total raw capacity. The Olympic Venues are each equipped with a 128TB Isis 7500, AirSpeed 5500, and Interplay Production systems with connectivity back to the IBC.
