Page 20 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 1 2012

20 | ISSUE 1 2012 | THE CHANNEL
n London we certainly donʹt
have to deal with all the on‐
ground challenges and
satellite frequency licensing
issues that we had in
Beijing. London is an
extremely well‐connected
place in terms of fibre optic cable
and we are fully familiar with (UK
regulator) OFCOM’s framework.
Broadcasters around the world
are working with squeezed
production budgets so the
challenge for us with the London
Games is to provide clients with
robust, reliable and innovative
technologies and more cost‐
effective solutions – without
jeopardising the technical service in
any way.
Weʹll have GlobeCast staff from
the UK and from overseas as well
working on this – from France,
Italy, South Africa, Singapore and
more. Our teams will comprise staff
who have the right depth of
experience, because in live TV you
donʹt get a second chance.
What do you offer non-rights holders?
We are offering services from two
sites. From Stratford, where the
main Olympic park is, we offer six
stand‐up positions for news crews
to do their daily bulletins. We are
also offering the potential to build a
studio there if a broadcaster wants
to host a news show from this
TRIEDANDTESTED
Remote
production
is one
example of
innovation
in our
offering
“
location. Weʹll have SD and HD
satellite connectivity to Intelsat 905
coming out of Stratford, with all the
communications that go alongside
that.
We are also offering a position
by Lambeth Palace for a traditional
London shot overlooking the Houses
of Parliament, which broadcasters
can use as a one‐stop solution for
doing a report which is then
beamed back to their broadcast
base anywhere in the world.
What timeframe are you working to?
For non‐rights holders, weʹll have
everything ready two weeks prior
to the Games. For the rights‐
holding broadcasters, we will have
everything in place and tested one
month before the event, and then
moved into the IBC and tested
again with two weeks to go.
Is there still time for NRHBs to
approach you?
We work with new requests right
up to the last second: that’s a key
part of our offering. A major story
might break at Games time –
anything newsworthy and
unexpected can come along.
Are you getting specific service
requests?
The specific requests and the
technical developments are driven
by the rights‐holders. For news, we
are seeing a lot more requests for
HD and in general we are seeing
much more demand for file‐based
play‐out; instead of bringing a tape
to play out on a tape deck clients
are bringing a laptop with a file. We
are also responding to requests for
office space and logistics to help
clients get their people around.
It is important to mention the
technology that we are using
because, compared with Beijing, it is
a lot more advanced. London 2012
will be predominantly an MPEG4 or
JPEG 2000 encoding environment.
With JPEG 2000 comes a convergence
between the traditional video
encoding technology and the IP
world – we are able to deliver not
just video but also file transfer data
and IP phones over all these
networks. So we are offering value‐
added services in order to make the
broadcastersʹ experience a much
more holistic one.
You mentioned more cost-effective
solutions – can you give an example?
There is a lot of innovation in our
offering for the rights‐holders, to
provide greater efficiency. An
example is the ability to do remote
production: allowing broadcasters
to stay in their home countries and
do the final programme production
from base instead of sending their
whole team to London. We are
ideally positioned to help them
”
Simon Farnsworth is one of the key people behind the scenes trying to
make the London 2012 Olympics an unforgettable experience for viewers
the world over. As Head of Contribution Services for GlobeCast globally, he
is putting everything in place to service broadcasters' requirements in the
run-up and during the 2012 Olympics. What are the challenges in London?
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