Category: Audio and Video

Bob Kovacs, former Technology Editor for TV Tech recently wrote an article for TV Technology “NBC Rises to the Tech Challenges of the 2024 Olympics.” Kovacs highlights how NBC will leverage NDI, HDR, ST 2110 and REMI workflows to broadcast the 2024 Olympics.

According to Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering and technology for NBC Olympics and Sports, NBC, the official U.S. broadcaster for the Olympic games has been working for almost two years in both Paris & the NBC Sports Hub in Stamford, Connecticut to ensure a broadcast that is swifter, higher and stronger.

This will be Jefferson’s first games as head of NBC Olympics’ tech operations. Jefferson has been with NBC Olympics since 2008 in Post Production and Asset Management teams. 

“We started design and peer review about 20 months ago, with build, configure and test in our integration facility. We tested video paths, workflows, delivery mechanisms and failure modes all before items shipped out. We ship gear mostly pre-configured, pre-installed, and pre-tested, for both speed of deployment and for peace of mind.”
Darryl Jefferson

The Broadcast is going to be complex, with numerous venues and the the need to integrate feeds from the primary Olympics video system. There are a lot of moving parts. Their goal is for viewers to experience a seamless broadcast. So seamless viewers won’t notice that many of the on-air talent is in Stamford, while the bustle is happening in Paris. 

“The biggest leap is splitting large parts of our team between Paris and Stamford. Transporting large quantities of cameras, effects gear and studios full of equipment all the way home has historically not been financially viable. In some cases, the latency was unacceptable. That split approach allows us to cover more sports with fewer total people traveling than just a few Games ago.”
Darryl Jefferson

Darryl Jefferson (Image credit: NBC)

NBC Is prepared to give the viewers a seamless broadcast with the revolution in connectivity and capability.

“With new tools, robust networks, capacity with cloud infrastructure, and the ability to approach signal transport differently, there exists a whole host of new options today”
Darryl Jefferson

The Oylmpics will be broadcasted in 4K/HDR and 5.1.4 immersive audio. Jefferson says “It may be a tie between getting HDR support everywhere we may need it, and the large cut over to support IP in many places. Although we’ve had important experience with both, there exist so many devices, solutions, vendors and third parties that do not support wide color gamut today, or equipment through which color information doesn’t survive.”

One of NBC’s most basic decisions assembling a system of this size is where to use the SMPTE ST 2110 IP video standard and where to use the older SMPTE SDI standard. “We have a healthy mixture of both, but are about 60% ST 2110 handoff, venue and core orchestration,” Jefferson said. “In some cases, we support both formats within a Tech Center, or gateway translation to convert one to the other. Fortunately, we have spent the last few Games [since Tokyo] making the transition over time, and certainly learning all the lessons.”

In addition to SDI and ST 2110, NBC is also using some NDI. “We are using NDI in some areas, specifically NDI v6, with support of HDR and enhanced audio,” Jefferson said.

“We have a whole trove of new technology, some of which is well behind the camera [ST 2110 and Dante, HDR and ATMOS everywhere], new encoding mezzanine formats, and also a good deal of enhancements to bring viewers further behind the scenes. Backstage cameras, audio from coaches, cameras in the stands with families, even biometrics on family and coaches. The goal of all this technology is to bring more elements of storytelling around each athlete’s journey.”
Darryl Jefferson

Check out the full article here!