France Télévisions has revealed details of the different control rooms set up to broadcast the Paris Olympics and Paralympics.
The broadcaster created a dedicated room on the 7th floor of MFTV, France Télévisions’ headquarters, housing 11 high-performance servers, five of which are specifically dedicated to feeds from the Games.
This configuration enables the broadcaster to efficiently manage the feeds for its three channels broadcasting the Olympics: France 2, France 3 and a digital channel.
“Based on this programming, we are [producing] 30 feeds, enabling each control room to draw on this resource,” said Michel Feuillye, project coordinator at France Télévisions.
“Technically, this makes it possible to record, playback, reread and recalibrate the numerous feeds.”
The feeds are routed from what the broadcaster calls the Trafic room, describing it as the nerve centre post production and image archiving. The room was designed specifically for Paris 2024 and is strategically located close to the server room, ensuring that commentary matches the images the broadcaster receives from Olympic Broadcast Services, thanks to a high-tech sound system.
“For recording and playback, we developed a global, shared system to work with all the resources, which meant finding a pivotal format: full HD 1080p HDR. This means we can deliver quality results for UHD, HD and post-production,” adds Pélagie Kolodziejski, project coordinator.
The server control room is located on level 0 of France Télévisions’ Paris headquarters, enabling the broadcaster to manage and supervise recordings.
Also on level 0 is what the broadcaster describes as its ‘sport editorial cockpit’ giving operators total visibility of the day’s different Olympic competitions. This enables them to precisely define and retrieve the best bits of the day’s action for nightly rebroadcasts on France 2 and the digital channel.
From the cockpit, the operators also keep a close eye on the next day’s events, fine-tuning the broadcast schedule for each control room during the day, it said.
“The systems have been prepared in advance, but we are not immune to unforeseen circumstances that need to be resolved to ensure that everything runs smoothly and to facilitate the work of the teams as much as possible,” added Feuillye.
