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LIVE BROADCASTING
“OBS HAD TO PRESENT THE WORLD’S LARGEST SPORTS BROADCAST TWO TIMES IN ONE YEAR”
Due to the Covid-enforced postponement of the Tokyo Summer Games until 2021, OBS had to present the world’s largest sports broadcast two times in one year. “This has never happened before – and it hasn’t been easy. Normally, we have a year and a half between each edition of the Games in order to prepare, but thanks to the postponement, this period was squeezed to just a fewmonths,” explains Salamouris. The technological advancement in China enabled this fast turnaround, with partners Alibaba helping to deploy new cloud services, with China Unicom providing network coverage; Alibaba has been the cloud services supplier to the International Olympic Committee and OBS since 2018.
“If we had to deal with problems like infrastructure or readiness, it would have become overwhelming. The fact that we had a really stable technological set-up there – and local employees we could bring on – really helped alleviate the challenges caused by the Covid-19 postponement,” says Salamouris. “We had to send some of our people to Beijing, while the Tokyo Games were taking place. We were a bit lucky that both cities were in similar time zones. Once we finished Tokyo, we started sending equipment and personnel directly to Beijing.” SNOWBALLING EXPECTATIONS OBS could stick to its original, ambitious plans, making this the first completely UHD HDRWinter Games. Four years ago, the Pyeongchang event had 4K cameras in the mix, but 4K plus high dynamic range is now the standard. The Beijing Olympics were also entirely IP-based – a core enabler of the UHD workflows and easier management and distribution of content. Remote coverage really hit its stride at these Games. For last summer’s extravaganza in Tokyo, broadcasters around the world scrambled to produce coverage fully from their home bases, with
ZHANGJIAKOU
YANQING
BEIJING
The Beijing Olympics actually took place in three locations: Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou CHINA
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MAY/JUNE 2022 FEED:XTREME
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