
BCE provides host broadcast production as 2020 Tour de Luxembourg rolls out By Fergal Ringrose, SVG Europe
Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 09:00
Print This Story
The five-stage 2020 Skoda Tour de Luxembourg gets underway today, Tuesday 15 September, and continues around the country until Saturday. The race organiser has chosen Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE) to ensure live coverage and transmission of the event.
BCE and NEP teams prepare for the Tour de Luxembourg on prologue day, Monday 14 September
BCE is orchestrating live coverage from its OB truck connected to five HD cameras at the arrival as well as three motocams transmitted via RF-linked helicopter and airplane. The RF element is being provided to BCE by NEP Belgium.
In addition to the live production, BCE will ensure live streaming in high definition on RTL.lu. Using BCE's mutualised playout services, the Tour will be broadcast live over IP from BCE's broadcasting centre on RTL T l Letzebuerg and on Eurosport.
The annual stage race was due to take part in late May to early June but was postponed until this week due to COVID-19. This year the event has moved up a category to become part of the ProSeries division the second division of world cycling. This new 2.HC rating is the highest below the UCI's World Tour.
Twenty four teams are taking part this year and among the GC favourites are John Degenkolb, Arnaud
Plexiglass separators in place on BCE's OB truck for Tour de Luxembourg coverage
D mare, Tony Gallopin and Tim Wellens. The 2019 champion is Jes s Herrada from the Cofidis team.
BCE head of production and digital media operations Xavier Thillen told SVG Europe that this is the second time that BCE has produced the host broadcast production for the Tour. It's the second time that the event has been televised live, relating to its upgrade by UCI to Pro2status on the UCI Europe Tour.
Last year BCE provided the same camera coverage, but the three motocams were delivered via SNG. This year they have been upgraded to RF. Graphics for the event are being provided to BCE by Videohouse Belgium.
The rescheduling of the Tour of course means it now coincides with the Tour de France. This means each stage must be run in the morning, said Thillen, and finished by 2pm, so that Eurosport can switch over to its Tour de France coverage in the afternoon. Eurosport coverage begins at 11am each morning.
Due to the COVID-19 sanitary requirements, the OB van interior has been adapted with large Plexiglas windows to ensure the proper separation of the production team. A cleaning team is also present during the complete event to sanitise the truck and the production equipment.
BCE has equipped the OB van with COVID-secure measures, not just Plexiglass but also a film over the vision mixer but done in such a way that we don't have to move any people out of the truck, so that production can be completed as normal. The BCE production team is the same size as for the first Tour de Luxembourg coverage provided last year.
The COVID-19 restrictions are rigorous, and overseen by both the cycling federation and by a representative of the interior ministry of Luxembourg.
The challenges are more to do with the restrictions imposed by the authorities, of course meaning no unauthorised people may be involved in the production and the different parts of the Tour - broadcasters, officials, teams - cannot mix along the way.
This is not the Tour de France, said Thillen, so we're not able to close off streets two or three days before each stage. Instead they may have only two hours before the end of each stage to ensure everything is in place at the finish line and for the podium presentation.
Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2019 Foto: Serge Waldbillig
Thillen told SVG Europe this is the first sporting event BCE is covering in Luxembourg this year. The company has nevertheless been very busy with various types of productions since lockdown, including working out the broadcast coverage plan when the Luxembourg parliament was moved out of the parliament building. There is also a large IT fair taking place this week in Luxembourg which is being covered live by BCE.
We are glad to cover the 2020 edition of the Tour, said Thillen. While our expertise in production, broadcast and streaming ensures a seamless experience for the viewers it is our multiple productions during the pandemic which allows us to respect the sanitary measures for the organisers and workers on-site.
BCE provides media services, system integration and software development in the areas of television, radio, production and postproduction, telecommunication, and IT. With more than 200 people employed, BCE serves about 400 clients in various sectors, such as TV channels, radio stations, film distributors, producers, advertising companies, telecommunications operators, and public services.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
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...
17/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/07/2026
Foundry Releases SmartRoto for Nuke
Brie Clayton July 17, 2026
0 Comments
Spline-based AI powered plugin accelerates time-consuming rotoscoping, helping...
17/07/2026
A Short Documentary About a Giant Pencil Edited with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton July 17, 2026
0 Comments
SBIFF jury award winner finished fro...
17/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/07/2026
Lightware has published its second voluntary Sustainability Report, showing how energy efficiency, product longevity and responsible material use are increasing...
17/07/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced Griptape Enterprise, a new tier of the Griptape AI workflow orchestration platform, extended to meet the str...
17/07/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the availability of SmartRoto, a new AI-powered plugin upgrade for Nuke, NukeX, Nuke Studio, and Nuke Indie ...
17/07/2026
The Final Release of Blackmagic Fairlight Live is Now Available!
Brie Clayton July 16, 2026
0 Comments
Fairlight Live is a new audio mixer designed fo...
17/07/2026
Leveraging All of Entertainment's IP
Andy Marken July 16, 2026
0 Comments
Nobody ever wins the games. Period. There are survivors. There\s no win...
17/07/2026
New and returning series, live festival broadcasts, powerful documentaries and major sporting moments headline RT Radio 1's summer schedule
RT Radio 1 is...
17/07/2026
Think of a professional athlete. What separates elite performers is what happens...
17/07/2026
Up For The Match - Live From Croke Park this Saturday at 8pm on RT One and RT ...
17/07/2026
RT Commercial has today announced DiscoverIreland.ie, as sponsor of The Traitor...
16/07/2026
Media organisations with tested plans for new products, services or revenue models can now apply for grants of up to 30,000 through the Business Innovation Syn...
16/07/2026
This recent graduate and Georgia native has turned an early fascination with live production into a growing passion for camera work
In the live-sports-video in...
16/07/2026
TNDV is marking the first anniversary of Aspiration 35, a mobile production truck built around ARRI Alexa 35 Live camera systems. Over its first year, the truck...
16/07/2026
ATSC has completed a major revision to its A/85 Recommended Practice: Techniques...
16/07/2026
FloSports has announced an exclusive global media partnership with CrossFit for the 2026 CrossFit Games, presented by Air National Guard, beginning July 21 in S...
16/07/2026
Sennheiser has released firmware version 1.4 for its Spectera wireless system and announced the Spectera Command Button (Cat. No. 701014). The update adds comma...
16/07/2026
ESPN and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) have announced a multi-year...
16/07/2026
Audio-Technica has announced the 20 Series Control Application, a Stream Deck plug-in for compatible Audio-Technica USB microphones. The application is compatib...
16/07/2026
The fifteenth season of The Voice - La plus belle voix on TF1 used four Solid St...
16/07/2026
Gray Media and the Atlanta Hawks have announced a broadcast partnership that wil...
16/07/2026
Season 3 of Netflix's docuseries, which dropped this week, follows Jayden Da...
16/07/2026
The Texas Rangers and Rangers Sports Network presented by Progressive (RSN) have announced BZZR as the new direct-to-consumer distributor for Rangers game broad...
16/07/2026
With England's FIFA World Cup 2026 team getting ready to fly home after losi...
16/07/2026
In a return to Royal Birkdale, the team enjoys partnering with ETP and Gravity M...
16/07/2026
Along with a new studio at Ball Arena, the Colorado-based RSN is working with XR...
16/07/2026
Austria was back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and the team d...
16/07/2026
With 42 RF cameras and high-power radio mics deployed, the spectrum environment ...
16/07/2026
A new benchmark in bass enhancement
Described as a new benchmark in bass enhancement , Baby Audio's latest release has been designed to augment the lo...
16/07/2026
Popular library rebuilt in new Orbita Engine
Other Worlds Evolved is the latest of Zero G's sample libraries to be treated to a ground-up rebuild using ...
16/07/2026
Created in collaboration with A. G. Cook
The newest addition to Native Instruments' software collection introduces a new synth created by A. G. Cook, a ...
16/07/2026
NITV and SBS bring Australians to the heart of Garma
16 July, 2026
Media releases
The Garma Festival returns from 31 July-3 August, with NITV and SBS deliv...
16/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz supplies conformance test systems to Marquistech for India's...
16/07/2026
June brought stabilization to the television market. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day in front of their TV screens exactly the same as i...
16/07/2026
Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...
16/07/2026
33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...
16/07/2026
Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) today announced a strategic new integration to deliver ...