Tokyo Olympics: OBS CTO Sotiris Salamouris Discusses the Technical Leaps as Games Go All UHD/HDR By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - 9:00 am
Print This Story
SVG's coverage of the production of the Tokyo Olympics begins in earnest this week and we kick things off with a series of OBS executive interviews that have been provided by OBS to the media (our team will be on site next week and will interview them in the coming weeks). Below is an interview with OBS CTO Sotiris Salamouri.
Sotiris Salamouris, OBS CTO, says the move to the cloud will have a positive impact on not only operations but also set up and planning.
Salamouris oversees all the technical operations of OBS, including managing the planning group responsible for the design and delivery of the technical facilities and services of the host broadcasting opera tions for the Olympic Games. He is also responsible for introducing the technological roadmap for OBS and the mid- to long-term planning regarding the adoption of new technologies and manages the international team of broadcast engineers and operational personnel that has planned and operated the broadcast technical facilities for the past five Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as all editions of the Youth Olympic Games.
How do you view the effects of the coronavirus crisis on technology development? Will it stall progress or provide an unexpected opportunity?
Clearly, this will be an opportunity. A major hurdle in the fast adoption of digital workflows in the media industry has not been the lack of technology or digital tools per se; on the contrary, we have long realized within OBS that the existing technology is already quite advanced and reliable and could already be used for more efficient planning and in actual production workflows. Probably the biggest hurdle has been the level of inertia of others to adopt something that is so different from what has been used in the past, and such inertia is quite an important factor that should never be underestimated. We realize again and again the adoption of new technologies takes a long time, despite them being already available and mature enough. In the end, it comes down to demonstrating the value of the technological advances to people and emphasizing that it should make their day-to-day tasks easier. The early tangible benefits of technology is there to help gain buy-in and gather momentum for further adoption and advances. Then, there needs to be widespread training to familiarize large numbers of future users with the new capabilities and possibilities. In this sense, the coronavirus pandemic has been a supremely disruptive experience; it has made the advan tages of digitization even more obvious and provided a super accelerated' training to millions of media professionals on digital workflows and tools that otherwise would have taken years to be completed. Following the pandemic, we will enter a very different era in the methodologies and workflows that will be followed in content production, manage ment and distribution and OBS is more than ready to accept the challenge.
How significant is the change to Ultra High Definition (UHD) and how is it changing how the industry works?
It is very big change, a substantial change to what we have done before. We have tran sitioned between technologies at previous Games, notably at Beijing 2008 when we went from standard definition coverage to High Definition (HD). The change now is similar in terms of breadth, but the challenge is greater because the step between HD and UHD is much more demanding than between standard and HD. There is also the additional element of the transition from SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) to HDR (High Dynamic Range) and WCG (Wide Color Gamut) which comes with its own unique difficulties.
Technologically, it is a big step and made even more substantial because of the size of the broadcast operation at an Olympics. We need to support more than 40 venues and this means a comparable number of available production units. There are more than 50 outside broad cast vans and fly-pack systems that we need to assemble to cover the Games, and all of them need to transition to UHD and HDR/WCG.
It is a tremendous change and requires a lot of attention to how it is being engineered. Everyone in the industry knows that it has been coming, and while they may have expected it to take place over a number of years, the reality is that it has recently been speeding up, especially in the world of sports content. Most of the equipment that is reaching the broadcast market now is UHD ready and works on UHD workflows. The technology has reached a maturity level such that we are all confident that it is ready for the broadcast coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Games. However, this is not something that you can take lightly, especially in our own production environ ment since there are so many moving parts that need to be brought together.
We have done our homework and we are confi dent that the transition will be successful and the Olympic UHD HDR content will be stunning and delivered as per the strict quality expecta tions our RHBs have. Of course, we understand that there is a lot of attention on us and on what we are doing in Tokyo. It has a major impact on the broadcast industry because if we weren't to introduce it for the Olympics, it would probably take even longer to be widely adopted. We offer a service to the RHBs to satisfy their needs and, by doing this, we believe that we are also helping the industry move forward and transi tion faster and easier.
Few industries have such requirements in terms of number and size of data flows, combined with ultra-low latency and zero tolerance for data loss. How is Internet Protocol (IP) tech nology supporting your operations?
IP has been making its way to broadcast opera t
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
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
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
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
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
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 ...
Tokyo Olympics: OBS CTO Sotiris Salamouris Discusses the Technical Leaps as Games Go All UHD/HDR By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
