by Chris Luther, Director of Professional Services (Americas), SGL
A record number of us across the world have been glued to an amazing two weeks of Olympic sporting action. The cameras have stopped rolling, our sporting heroes have been welcomed home and the NBC Sports' team has checked out of the International Broadcast Center (IBC). The 2016 Rio Olympics is over and thousands of hours of world-class sporting action stored on hundreds of LTO tapes has been packed up and taken back to NBC's Stamford, Connecticut HQ. Like checking out of a hotel after a two week vacation, they don't want to leave any of that precious material behind.
Chris Luther, Director of Professional Services (Americas), SGL
Rio really has been a carnival Olympics, not only smashing records on the track, in the velodrome and in the pool but also behind the scenes. A staggering 350,000 hours of coverage has been shown London 2012 saw less than 200,000 hours. In a short four-year period how has this coverage increased so significantly? First, two new sports - golf and rugby sevens - were seen for the first time at the Games; second, there's been a vast increase in 4k capture; and finally, this year's event saw more digital coverage than ever, nearly double the amount of TV coverage and 2.5 times more than London 2012 (218,000 hours versus 81,500 hours). NBC exceeded a staggering 2.5 billion live streaming minutes, over one billion more than all previous Olympic Games combined.
Creating the world's biggest live television event comes with a lot of pressure and as a long time host broadcaster NBC Olympics has to ensure that the technology that it has in place from acquisition through to delivery is first-rate. One of the key elements of the workflow is the SGL FlashNet archive, which NBC Olympics first started using in Athens in 2004. Much of that content, is still regularly accessed, having been automatically migrated across generations of physical storage by the sophisticated content management software that is, SGL FlashNet.
On a day-to-day basis parent broadcaster NBC has a large SGL archive implementation at its Stamford HQ, which it uses to store material for its whole operation, fully implemented with Avid's Interplay PAM and MAM systems. When the Olympics come around every two years, that FlashNet system is extended out to the host country. This means that the editing teams around the world can easily reach back into the archives in Connecticut and pull that all important historical media. For content produced in Rio, NBC Olympics sent a small SGL archive that took all the feeds for the hundreds and thousands of hours of recordings that NBC made, and stored them on two 50 slot, 4 LTO drive libraries. The SGL FlashNet system is capable of storing nearly 4,000 hours of XDcam HD material every day even in this compact hardware configuration.
At the planning stage NBC Olympics decides which material will be archived or deleted at a later date placing flags within the metadata. During the event, as the SGL FlashNet system processes through each day's media it looks for material that's flagged to be archived and writes those terabytes of data onto the LTO tape. Jim Miles, Director of Digital Workflow Systems at NBC Olympics says, The SGL archive was pushed really hard throughout this event, processing thousands of jobs per day up to 600 jobs per hour which is really telling of what the system can do. As well as this powerful processing capability it also provided us with access to historical Games so we could pull content from London, Beijing, Sydney and Atlanta to integrate into the stories that we were telling even before the Games had started. Once the Games began, we logged every aspect of the competition so we can tell that story again next time. This workflow isn't just for the Olympics but all our other entities such as NHL and NFL; we go back to the archives constantly.
Enabling feature producers to easily pull historical material from the archive is a key part of the NBC production workflow. Traditionally pulling material from the US to the host nation in this way was an expensive and time consuming process involving a transmission operator, feed lines, encoders, satellites and a number of other components. Miles says, In years gone by it would take ten or fifteen people to make that happen. Now using the MAM and the SGL archive, producers can find the shot, pick off the chunk they want, quickly send this to the venue using file acceleration, restore that material and all the other components from FlashNet and within a few minutes they have that shot within their editing system.
Partial file restore, which is supported by both the Avid Interplay PAM and MAM workflows is a key element of the NBC Olympic workflow. Many of the recordings are much too long to be pulled back into the edit when often all that's required is the 30-second shot of the goal or the climax of the race. Built in intelligence within FlashNet's data handling components read and log the metadata held in the MXF or QuickTime wrapper as it's written to the archive. This information is then passed to the FlashNet database for later use when only a small portion of the original material is required.
Every two-year cycle brings about new technology features and Rio was no different. In Sochi, NBC Olympics had a separate archive from the production system, in Rio the search capability, the systems and the database were all fully integrated so the operators could log into a single tool and search for assets from that day or ten years ago, within the same result set and the same interface. Miles explains What we've been doing the last 18 days has never been done before, it's the biggest television event that we've produced, it's the most content we've ever pr
North America Stories
20/04/2024
As part of a push to improve the accessibility of its content, PBS Kids has announced that it has integrated American Sign Language (ASL) interpretations into m...
20/04/2024
SAN JOSE, Calif. Online security solution provider McAfee has released new research exploring the impact artificial intelligence (AI) and the rise of deepfakes ...
20/04/2024
The Federal Communications Commission has announced the agenda for an Open Meeting on Thursday, April 25, 2024 that will include votes on Net Neutrality Rules a...
20/04/2024
Virtual reality and its close relatives, such as extended reality, have been completely accepted into the workflow of high-end productions. Stepping into an LED...
20/04/2024
Video Games Round Out the Entertainment Package
Andy Marken April 19, 2024
0 Comments
By this, I take it you think everybody is who they say they are...
20/04/2024
With the Bears picking first, NBCUniversal Local's properties in Chicago plan extensive coverage of the NFL draft next week....
20/04/2024
Fox Sports said it hired two veteran advertising sales executives, with Jen Durda and Kathy Lydon both named VP....
20/04/2024
Daytime fans got a sneak peek at nominations for the 51st annual Daytime Emmys, with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) announcing the...
20/04/2024
DAZN is launching its Run It Up, its first multi-sports original vodcast, or video podcast, and a set of micro-podcasts ahead of the Devin Haney-Ryan Garcia fig...
20/04/2024
David Zaslav, CEO of troubled Warner Bros. Discovery, got a 27% increase in total compensation for 2023....
20/04/2024
New copper-catalyzed C-H activation strategy from Scripps Research Two-mode reactions inspired by human detox enzymes offer powerful new tools for drug discover...
19/04/2024
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 18: (L-R) John Early and Theda Hammel attend the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Stress Positions premiere at Library Center Theatre on ...
19/04/2024
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
19/04/2024
Pictured: Midnight Family
By Stephanie Ornelas
A great way to get to know a city as culturally unique and rich as Mexico City is to listen to the stories tol...
19/04/2024
St. Louis, MO - April 18, 2024 - Studio Network Solutions (SNS) announced today that MOD won three prestigious industry awards at NAB Show 2024 held this week i...
19/04/2024
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 19, 2024 - The Board of Directors of L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.16 per common share, payab...
19/04/2024
PARIS Intel has announced that its plans for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 will include using artificial intelligence technology powered by Intel ...
19/04/2024
LAS VEGAS Technologists working on all aspects of the 8K media production chain offered an optimistic update at the 2024 NAB Show on the state of 8K in video pr...
19/04/2024
OpenDrives New Software-Defined Platform Atlas Wins 2024 NAB Show Product of the...
19/04/2024
Grass Valley Showcases Next-Generation T3 Series 4K/HD Digital Recording and Pla...
19/04/2024
NiTRo's M-CUBE Studio Levels Up Esports Productions with AJA Gear
Brie Clayton April 19, 2024
0 Comments
Esports' rapid rise to popularity can...
19/04/2024
Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve 19
Brie Clayton April 19, 2024
0 Comments
Major update adds new DaVinci Neural Engine AI tools, new color ...
19/04/2024
Sony Pictures Entertainment is reportedly in talks with Apollo Global Management to make a bid to acquire Paramount which itself is currently discussing a merge...
19/04/2024
CBS Stations has launched CBS News California Investigates , with Julie Watts named regional CBS California correspondent. She will uncover and raise awarenes...
19/04/2024
MediaCo Holding, which owns radio stations WQHT (Hot 97) and WBLS in New York, said it acquired Estrella Media's Spanish-language video, audio and digital c...
19/04/2024
Netflix has ordered season five of fantasy drama The Witcher, which will be the final season. Production has recently begun on season four, and the two remainin...
19/04/2024
DirecTV Stream said it added eight more The CW affiliates to its lineup on Thursday....
19/04/2024
CBS has renewed Elsbeth for the 2024-2025 season. The drama, with Carrie Preston in the lead role, debuted February 29....
19/04/2024
With the Bears picking first, NBCUniversal Local's properties in Chicago plan extensive coverage of the NFL draft next week....
19/04/2024
PHILADELPHIA As government subsidies for broadband services come to an end, Comcast has launched NOW, a new product portfolio of lower-cost Internet, mobile and...
19/04/2024
DirecTV Stream has added more local CW stations for its streaming customers in Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Hartford-New Haven Conn., Phoenix, San ...
19/04/2024
NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES MediaCo Holding Inc. has announced that it has acquired all of Estrella Media's network, content, digital, and commercial operations....
19/04/2024
SAN JOSE, Calif. Adobe has announced that the all-new Adobe Express mobile app is available to all users, bringing features powered by Adobe Firefly generative ...
19/04/2024
LOS GATOS, Calif. Netflix reported another blockbuster quarter by adding 9.33 million new subscribers in Q1, 2024 as global paid memberships hit 269.6 million, ...
19/04/2024
The Current State of the Industry and the Future Impact of AI
Hillary Lewis April 18, 2024
0 Comments
The Entertainment Industry: How did we get here ...
19/04/2024
After Effects Tutorial Text Blur Reveal
Andy Ford April 18, 2024
0 Comments
Here's a way to do a quick blur reveal for your text layer. Start by...
19/04/2024
Hollyland Mars M1 Enhanced Wireless Transmitter / Receiver
Colin Smith April 18, 2024
0 Comments
This tutorial shows the new wireless transmitter rece...
19/04/2024
Resolve Fusion: Writing Expressions with Lua
Simon Ubsdell April 18, 2024
0 Comments
The answer to the very frequently-asked question: what is the pro...
19/04/2024
B+C and Next TV have announced the winners of Best of Show Awards for the 2024 NAB Show. The awards were judged by a panel of industry experts at the convention...
19/04/2024
Cate Blanchett narrates the Netflix series Our Living World, which premieres April 17. The four-part series looks at the extraordinary creatures around the glob...
19/04/2024
Apple TV Plus has a spinoff of For All Mankind in the works. It is called Star City and details the cosmonauts, engineers and intelligence officers working behi...
19/04/2024
Jacquie Walker, longtime anchor at WIVB Buffalo, will step down from the anchor desk. She has spent over 40 years at WIVB and her last day as an anchor is May 2...
19/04/2024
Bob Hearts Abishola will premiere in broadcast syndication this fall on such station groups as Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair, Hearst Television, Tegna, E.W. Scr...
19/04/2024
Live With Kelly and Mark remains TV's top entertainment talk show as Kelly Ripa and her co-host and husband Mark Consuelo celebrate their one-year anniversa...
19/04/2024
Sean McLaughlin has been named VP of news for Graham Media Group. He had been senior VP of local news at E.W. Scripps. He will will be responsible for developi...
19/04/2024
Netflix has shared the first trailer from One Hundred Years of Solitude, a series based on the esteemed novel by Gabriel Garc a M rquez. The streamer is on boar...
19/04/2024
NAB 2024 in Review: West Hall - SportsTech Buzz From AWS, Appear, Ateme, The Swi...
19/04/2024
NAB 2024 Draws 61,000+ Attendees With More Than Half Attending the Show for the ...
by Chris Luther, Director of Professional Services (Americas), SGL
