Paris 2024: Behind the Scenes at NBC Sports' Record-Setting At-Home Operation in Stamford The ST 2110 and Dante facility produces 1080p HDR, 50-Hz content By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Friday, August 2, 2024 - 11:36 am
Print This Story
Since cutting the ribbon on its Stamford, CT, broadcast center following the London 2012 Games, NBC Sports Group has escalated the facility's role in its Olympics broadcast operations with each successive Games. Implementation of the at-home efforts were accelerated for the Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Games because of COVID-related challenges, and NBC hasn't looked back. Stamford is squarely at the center of NBC's Paris 2024 production with more technical infrastructure, crew, and live shows located there than ever before.
The period of COVID production expedited a lot of technology and infrastructure that would have been implemented down the road but out of necessity were fast-tracked, says NBC Olympics Production Executive Producer/President Molly Solomon. We are now one unified team: there's no evidence of distance between us [in Paris and Stamford] because of three years of planning between production, operations, and engineering. There is no latency in our interaction. Aren't you always on a headset anyway [no matter where you are]?
The heart of NBC Sports' Olympics broadcast operations in Stamford, CT
Nearly 2,000 NBC Sports staffers - nearly two-thirds of the entire Olympics coverage team - are working at the division's headquarters in Stamford, handling what ultimately will be more than 7,000 hours of programming across NBCUniversal's linear and digital platforms. While the team in Paris is focused on capturing the Olympic action as it plays out, it's up to the crew in Stamford to take in thousands of live and ENG feeds from Paris and package them for the millions of viewers watching.
During the 19 days of Paris 2024 coverage, Stamford is housing 17 production-control rooms, the lion's share of NBC's live studio productions, 28 off-tube announce booths, a dozen flex rooms that can serve a variety of needs, 24/7 live ingest and editing, the massive Highlights Factory operation, the broadcast-operations center, and more.
Game-Changer: The Move to ST 2110 and 1080p HDR Across the Board Like NBC's Paris effort, the Stamford operation is a fully 1080p HDR, 50-Hz production with 10 channels of Dolby Atmos across the board. In addition, nearly the entire operation relies on SMPTE ST 2110 for video and ST 2110-30 for audio, with a separate Dante network for audio, thanks to significant upgrades in IP technology following Beijing 2022.
NBC Sports' Kevin Callahan: Production members get quickly acclimated to the new systems and new facilities, thanks to the flexibility we've created here.
The biggest shift for these Games, says Kevin Callahan, senior director, system engineering, NBC Sports, is that everything flows through Stamford in some form. There's not a single control room in Paris that can go to air without passing through Stamford. We're able to do that largely because of the [upgrades] we've made since Beijing, with about 95% of our control rooms being native 2110 and the entire facility [running in] 1080p HDR 50.
Stamford's routing core has grown exponentially with the move to 2110: from roughly 3,000 3,000 to 5,000 11,000 sources/destinations with the new IP router (a Cisco switch with Grass Valley orchestration and EVS Cerebrum router control). Switchers in the larger control rooms went from having 20 router feeds to 128 feeds. Each control room is outfitted with a Densitron 2RU touchscreen router panel, streamlining operations for the production teams.
With all the rooms being 2110, the sky's the limit, says Callahan. That has really unlocked our remote workflows. We're now able to do all our REMI workflows with split video and audio levels. Every control room gets their own source list that they can share across the board so they can name every source whatever they want - just like they do in the trucks. That's a simple thing, but it has been huge for our production teams.
Control Rooms: Record Number of PCRs Drive Stamford-Based Productions The 17 production-control rooms in Stamford comprise 12 full PCRs, four Riedel Simplylive rooms, and one mobile unit. That is up from the 11 PCRs and three mobile units deployed for Tokyo 2020.
PCR2 serves as the home of NBC's Primetime in Paris, marking the second Olympics that the primetime show has been produced in Stamford. The fully ST 2110 control room is outfitted with a Sony XVS-9000 switcher, Evertz ev670 multiviewers, EVS Cerebrum router control, and Calrec ImPulse audio-routing core.
[The crews in PCR2] are in preproduction most of the day, says Callahan, watching all the feeds and compiling [content] to go into the Primetime segments that evening. They are watching it happen as it comes in and compiling the best of' [content] to put in the Primetime show.
With technical infrastructure and layouts similar to PCR2's, PCR3 handles USA Network's round-the-clock broadcasts (being made available to distribution partners in 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos audio), and PCR4 serves the NBC broadcast network's daytime segments.
Parked at the loading dock, Mobile TV Group 49 Flex serves as PCR17.
Two new fully ST 2110 IP control rooms, PCR11 and PCR12, were completed just prior to the start of Paris 2024. PCR11 is the home of diving during the day, NBC's live Spotlight on Paris TikTok show from Team USA House in the evenings, and the late-night show closing out the day. The much-hyped Gold Zone whip-around show is produced out of PCR12.
PCR6 is shared by E! network, which carries daily Olympics coverage, and CNBC, broadcasting Olympics content on Sat
North America Stories
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
Paris 2024: Behind the Scenes at NBC Sports' Record-Setting At-Home Operation in Stamford The ST 2110 and Dante facility produces 1080p HDR, 50-Hz content By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
