
HBS and F d ration Fran aise de Tennis bring the score to deuce for Roland Garros 2021 By Heather McLean, Editor
Monday, June 21, 2021 - 09:31
Print This Story
2021 at Roland Garros marked the first time in 30 years that French incumbent, France T l visions, had not held the reigns over the production, instead with F d ration Fran aise de Tennis with host broadcaster, HBS, setting a new standard
Host Broadcast Services (HBS) has just completed its first Grand Slam at Roland Garros as the new host broadcaster alongside partner, F d ration Fran aise de Tennis (FFT), managing the first event of the three year agreement with confidence.
This year the FFT put itself in control of the broadcast of the event, ramping up both the production quality and what it provides for rights holding broadcasters. For HBS, this has meant working hard to fulfil the dreams and desires of its new partner to push the French Open onwards and upwards.
The FFT aimed high for 2021, marking the first time in 30 years that French incumbent, France T l visions, had not held the reigns over the production. To make the FFT's ambitions come true, HBS bought in approximately 740 staff for the host broadcast operation. They worked tirelessly to produce over 800 tennis matches during the course of the three week tournament.
High production quality
On the production workflow, Philippe Oziol, HBS project director for Roland Garros tells SVG Europe: The production of the main courts is natively in UHD (HDR and SDR) with native UHD main cameras and upconverted/upmapped sources for additional shots and GFX. The rest of the productions is 1080p. Delivery to broadcasters is proposed in UHD HDR, UHD SDR, 1080p SDR and 1080i.
For rights holders we have a media server providing access to all the content generated around the event, offering differing standards based on the rights holders' needs whether premium or standard subscriptions - and offering on or off-site access
He goes on: Production is UHD HDR native on the Philippe-Chatrier court, UHD SDR on Suzanne-Lenglen, Simonne-Mathieu and court 14, and 1080p50 for all others production. The action is covered by 116 wired cameras (42 UHD natives), 15 RF cameras and seven ENG crews. Distribution is centralised at the MCR/CIR for on-site delivery with Eurovision delivering the worldwide transmission.
The FFT has created a new TV compound for 2021 based on temporary cabins, which will be fine-tuned year on year going forwards to the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, when Roland Garros will host the tennis for both events.
Oziol explains the details of the new compound: The set up at the compound is structured around cabin-based galleries working with flyaway kits. The global workflow for the event is designed around 20 galleries: six main court galleries (UHD HDR/UHD SDR/3G); and 10 ViBox galleries for the outside courts. In addition, four galleries are available for additional content delivery (international super signals, FFT studio and stadium giant screen playout).
Everything is networked through the EVS system, which is based on a global workflow of 20 XT-VIA and 21 LSM-VIA remotes, sharing 168 sources between live replay operators, highlights and editing teams, he adds.
The operation is almost completely based on site, with match production, GFX, editing, and ENG crews all working from the Roland Garros complex. Notes Oziol: The only element we have off-site is the logging operation and media asset management, where we have 24 loggers based off-site at the HBS HQ in Boulogne-Billancourt, a few minutes' walk from the stadium. The logging operators are all connected into the same network as those working on site via the server we have based at the HB House, accessible through the cloud off-site.
Media server first
This year marks the first time Roland Garros has sported a media server for rights holders, which actually makes the French Open the first Grand Slam to provide this service for its broadcasters, greatly enriching the offering and therefore its coverage globally.
For rights holders we have a media server providing access to all the content generated around the event, offering differing standards based on the rights holders' needs whether premium or standard subscriptions - and offering on or off-site access, says Oziol.
The vision switchers used are mainly Grass Valley KFrame X, says Oziol. He adds: The Philippe-Chatrier vision mixer is a Sony XVS8000. Cameras are Sony HDC-3500, HDC-5500 (SSM and Ultra Motion), and Panasonic UE-150.
On whether HBS had decided to use IP or base band, Oziol says: The initial plan was a fully IP-based solution, [but] due to the change in dates of the event there had to be some adaptation to the set up. The IP-based solution was conserved for the central core audio and video resource sharing and distribution, while the production aspect has been handled with legacy core equipment linked via SDI<>IP gateways Imagine Selenio network processor.
Roland Garros took place from 24 May to 13 June 2021.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
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...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
07/05/2026
At Broadcast Asia 2026 (Stand 5H3 8), LiveU is redefining live production with its most powerful IP-video EcoSystem to date built to help broadcasters and con...
07/05/2026
January 8, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), a leader in high-performance, on-s...
07/05/2026
February 9, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning pioneer i...
07/05/2026
March 20, 2024
NAB 2024, Las Vegas - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-awa...
07/05/2026
April 1, 2025
CINEMACON, APRIL 1, 2025 - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming syste...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), an Academy and Emmy Award-winning de...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront participated in the ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Summit on Sunday, June 15, 2025. Held at The Phenomena Experience, the event feat...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Passion and dedication will take you places. Come with us on a short trip to the heart of India, where Annapurna Studios is living-up to the inspi...
07/05/2026
July 3, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
September 1, 2025
IBC 2025, Amsterdam - Colorfront (colorfront.com) - the Acade...
07/05/2026
April 17, 2026
LOS ANGELES - April 17, 2026 - Colorfront today announced Colorf...
07/05/2026
April 23, 2026
NAB 2026, Las Vegas - the Academy and Emmy Award-winning develop...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Recreating the 1974 Doctor Who Time Tunnel in After Effects
Graham Quince May 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Time Tunnel from Doctor Who titles is one of th...
07/05/2026
Well known Irish faces pushed to the edge in new series of
Uncharted with Ray G...
07/05/2026
RT will premiere A Traveller Family, a compelling new documentary exploring the...
07/05/2026
Less typing, more tanking.
Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action - and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into th...
06/05/2026
Gravity Media Chief RF Communications Engineer Glenn Willems uses Wisycom RF over Fiber and wireless solutions across major cycling events and international mar...
06/05/2026
A Sennheiser Spectera module is now available in Bitfocus Companion and Buttons, enabling direct integration of Spectera with the two software platforms. The mo...
06/05/2026
Ted Turner, the visionary media entrepreneur whose appetite for disruption helpe...
06/05/2026
Peacock is going all-in on the beautiful game - streaming all 104 FIFA World Cup...
06/05/2026
New pricing tiers for vocal/dialogue restoration tool
NoiseWorks Audio's AI-powered vocal and dialogue processing plug-in is now available in three diff...
06/05/2026
Popular mixing & routing software overhauled
Following a recent public beta test, RME have launched the final release version of the powerful mixing and rou...
06/05/2026
New SOS Video Feature
Focusrites ISA C8X is a milestone product that brings together the companys analogue heritage and their expertise in digital audio. Yo...
06/05/2026
Polands Miecznik-class frigates are part of the largest contract in Polish shipbuilding history. (Image Credit: PGZ Stocznia Wojenna)...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Riedel Communications today announced the expansion of its leadership structure as part of a strategic initiative to strengthen both its operational management ...
06/05/2026
For nearly three decades, Veteran Production Sound Mixer and Five-time Emmy Award Winner Dirk Sciarrotta has helped define the sonic identity of the long-runnin...
06/05/2026
ZEISS CinCraft LensCore: Cinema Lens Looks for Compositing
Brie Clayton May 6, 2026
0 Comments
ZEISS announces the launch of CinCraft LensCore, a nove...
06/05/2026
Wisycom Solves Extreme RF Challenges Across Miles of Live Action for Gravity Med...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...