It’s been a spectacularly busy summer for broadcasters with major sporting events taking place across Europe.
All eyes are now back on Paris as the 2024 Paralympic Games begin. Viewers will once again be watching in their millions as athletes swim, run, jump, cycle and more to win a coveted medal.
Broadcasters need to know that the technology they’re employing will stand up to the rigours of covering all the action.
SDI to IP gateways
arkona technologies is part of the live production infrastructure, in particular SDI<->IP gateways, audio and video processing (such as audio shuffling, audio sample-rate conversion, video colourspace conversion HDR-SDR etc) and as well as large multiviewing walls used in production control rooms and master control rooms.
“Working on a live event is stressful enough, but working on global sports competitions that are viewed around the world leaves zero room for error,” says the company’s Erling Hedkvist.
“The production team relies on us to perform, and our solutions provide them with the ability to deploy a reliable system that is also flexible and gives them the ability to pivot on the fly as necessary.”
arkona is used to working on major events, says Hedkvist, and has seen the scale of the projects grow with its technology now being used in “many more places and with more broadcasters than ever before”.
“This is however the first year that they are using our new 100 per cent software-based platform manifold CLOUD that runs on COTS FPGA accelerator which gives our clients 10-30x more processing power per rack-unit than they have ever had before,” he explains. “This also adds to the green aspect of the event since our power consumption is 90 per cent less than the competition and even our previous generation products.”
Monitoring the feeds
TAG Video Systems’ technology is involved at every monitoring point in the distribution of content, both in Paris and as it’s fed back to stakeholders in every group involved in the production of the games.
“There are 4 major groups/steps in this process,” explains Paul Schiller, product marketing manager.
Step one involves a major TV network that has a mobile remote operations system that is physically sent to the location of the event. All the monitoring, probing and multiviewing of the feeds is done using TAG’s technology.
Step two sees the feeds from the remote ops system sent back to the USA to have items such as captioning, commentary, graphics and branding added, with all of the video monitored by TAG.
“The outputs from the group noted in step two are pushed out for distribution to all the major TV service providers as well as all the network’s owned TV stations and all the independent affiliates,” explains Schiller. “Plus, the network’s OTT streaming platform takes its own versions of the events outlined in steps 1 and 2 and provides all the video to viewers of that platform.”
Schiller admits that monitoring and probing IP video is a daunting task with so many different formats required for the various ways video is distributed, from the live video shot on the field at the Games all the way to the finished product sent to the viewers. “TAG was deployed to verify integrity and quality of the video as it is processed into each of these different formats as well as provide a common platform that anyone throughout that workflow can use for their part of that process,” he adds. “This provides an end-to-end view to the broadcast teams so that they can remain confident that the entire production is the absolute highest quality all the way to the viewer.”
SDR to HDR conversion
A major US TV network is employing the 9904-UDX-4K audio/video processor from Cobalt Digital for SDR-HDR conversion of pictures it receives, as well as colour correction.
“Cobalt’s 9902-UDX up-down-cross converter with the company’s frame rate conversion option is bringing news feeds back to Canada during the event,” adds Cobalt’s SVP worldwide sales and marketing, Suzanna Brady. “Other Cobalt gear used in Paris includes fibre solutions, products that support 12G and HDR, and MPEG compression products.”
Brady says Cobalt’s products are a crucial part of its customers’ workflows at high-profile events, with the company listening to broadcasters’ evolving needs, and adding features and functionalities over the years to match their growth and expectations.
“Cobalt gear is found in facilities all over the world and used by the broadcasters that bring these highest of high-profile events into people’s homes,” she continues. “We are very proud that Cobalt products are used time and time again, in situations when failure is not an option.”
