Speed and Concentration posted: 03/01/2022
by Bernhard Herrmann
The 8 HD from Studio Berlin and the associated rescue vehicle were in a cordoned-off area at Reichstagsufer.
Berlin was the political focus of national and international TV reporting. There was a lot of activity in the ARD capital studio to report live until late at night about the federal election in 2021 and two state elections. The ARD production management had called in almost all personnel and material to realize this live program. We had a look at what was happening from behind the scenes.
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Saturday afternoon, a good 24 hours before the last votes are cast in the federal election in 2021: A quartet of security staff in black suits and with earphones is standing in front of the entrance to the ARD capital studio on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, which is within sight of the Reichstag building near Marschallbr cke. Despite the intimidating first impression, the greeting is friendly and the sliding glass doors eventually open. In the lobby on the right there is a reporter set from Bayerischer Rundfunk with a camera, monitor, microphones, LED lighting and a high table. On the left-hand side, Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk has set up a similar structure. Before the next closed sliding glass door, the identity and 3G status are checked. Wearing an accreditation tape around the wrist and an FFP2 mask, we were joined Werner Melzer, by production manager of the ARD capital studio, and went to see the rooms relevant for TV production, which stretched over five floors, and the set of the election studio on the first floor of the atrium. Outside, two power generators whirred, delivering an output of 500 kVA for the voting studio and the OB van, operating completely independently of the general power supply. About 100 meters of power cable were laid in the building and to the OB van. The guarded courtyard gate led to the blocked Reichstagufer, where the 8 from Studio Berlin was parked.
REDUNDANT WORKFLOW
According to Andr Schumann, project manager for the 2021 Bundestag election broadcast from Studio Berlin, special attention was paid to the reliability of important devices and the connection lines to the branch offices. Therefore, among other things, the picture control of the OB van was linked fully redundantly with the picture control in the ARD capital studio. In the event of a failure, the other directing unit could have taken over seamlessly. A transporter from MTI Teleport Munich and a technician stood next to the OB van. From there all fiber optic connections of the MTI teleport network ran to the branch offices in the party headquarters in Berlin and Munich, the state parliament in Schwerin, the House of Representatives in Berlin, the ARD network and the OB van.
Eight Grass Valley LDX86 cameras were used for the broadcast from the ARD capital studio.
During the run-through rehearsal, the mood was still relatively relaxed. Particular attention was paid to stable and interference-free communication between all protagonists, the OB van, the ARD in-house control, the Tagesschau in Hamburg and all branch offices. Therefore, each switch was explicitly rehearsed with image, sound and on the day before the elections. For this purpose, a workstation for a technician from Riedel Communications was set up in one of the the OB vans, connecting to the stations in the party headquarters of AfD, B ndnis 90 / Die Gr nen, CDU, FDP, Die Linke and SPD in Berlin and the CSU in Munich. For the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania there was another stations in the state parliament in Schwerin, plus three additional stations in Potsdam, D sseldorf and a Munich beer garden.
In the 8 HD, three EVS with one operator each were used. Two systems had eight channels, one had twelve channels. This ensured that all statements from politicians or interviews in a field station could be recorded at any time on election Sunday and then accessed as required, even if they took place at the same time. Infratest dimap, a company for trend and election research, took a great deal of technical and personnel effort and collected and evaluated all the data on the elections for ARD in the capital city studio and output them as TV graphics. These data were provided by moderator J rg Sch nenborn for the image direction and an 84-inch-touchscreen. All data used for the prognosis, the extrapolations and the allocation of seats that were used during the rehearsals of course still fictitious. The lighting cameraman had a couple of headlights adjusted in the studio. Then the run-through rehearsal ended with a final meeting.
Presenter position and steadicam: in the voting studio, almost every square centimeter was occupied.
SETUP AND CAMERAS
In the ARD election studio on the first floor of the atrium in the ARD capital studio, almost every square centimeter was occupied. Meter-long cables had to be laid between the OB van, power generator and the voting studio for cameras, lighting, sound, monitors in the moderation table, video walls, several fiber optic stage boxes and network data connections for countless computers having to be invisible in the TV picture. The setup work started a week before the first rehearsal. On the previous Wednesday, the 8 HD from Studio Berlin was added to the setup.
ARD director Andr M ller had eight Grass Valley LDX86 cameras available, four were on a pump, one each on a crane camera, a wireless steadicam, a shoulder camera and a camera on the roof of the capital city studio. The HD picture was produced in the OB van in 1080i and transmitted as a program to the ARD network at Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt am Main via fiber optics. Studio Berlin deployed 32 employees for the TV production. All presenters of the election program and the ARD Tagesschau were equi
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
Speed and Concentration posted: 03/01/2022 
