“
THE CHANNEL
|
SPORT
By doing
remote
production
substantial
savings
were
achieved
”
30
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ISSUE 2 2013
|
THE CHANNEL
service is something that we are not
willing to risk – our broadcasters
count on us to use solutions of
which we are 100% sure.
At the London Olympics we did
quite a lot of JPEG2000 and we had
several broadcasters who were
doing remote production. So rather
than having a lot of production
staff onsite at the event, we
transported a lot more signals at a
very high data rate between the
event and the broadcasterʹs
production premises back in their
home country. The savings were
substantial; it’s quite possible that
weʹll see this on a wider scale in Rio
because it is proven and it works.
Who are your partners on the ground?
We work with Orange in Brazil, in
particular around the legal and
import and export issues. For rights
holders there tend to be special
dispensations in place but for
NRHs wanting to come into the
country there can be challenges. In
terms of third party providers, we
have a number of local partners in
Latin America with whom we have
worked on previous events. For
fibre, one always has to work with
the local telco who is the official
provider for an event; GlobeCast
has worked on numerous occasions
with Embratel who are also going
to be the fibre provider for Rio 2016.
Having that base of contacts and
relationships from what we have
been doing over the last years has
already paid off; for the
Confederations Cup the equipment
arrival and installation went very
smoothly. For Brazil and Rio, the
location as well as the security and
reliability of fibre and import and
export are the challenges for which
we’re preparing right now.
Part of our strength at these
events is our experienced team of
engineers and operators who have
done these events for the last 12 or
more years. We have a team of 20
in Sochi working for the Olympics,
bringing experience from Sydney,
Athens, Vancouver, Torino, Beijing
and London to help them meet the
particular challenges in a certain
country. We have to get it right
first time.
Fibre, satellite, IP - what's the trend?
For unilateral requirements from
broadcasters at sporting events –
it’s fibre in the majority of cases. IP
is definitely a developing trend;
certainly next year for the World
Cup a lot more IP over fibre is going
to be used, and probably in Rio as
well. We’ve noticed that broadcasters
are allocating higher bitrates for
data on fibre circuits, compared to
similar previous events.
Broadcasters now have many
more distribution platforms to fill,
so they want a lot of content
coming out of an event, particularly
a large scale event like an Olympics
where you have so many sport
events running simultaneously. So
that requirement tends to be filled
using fibre. But satellite is still used
as a backup for unilateral
contribution. For distribution, the
emphasis is still very much on
satellite because you are trying to
address perhaps 500‐600
broadcasters around the world. So
in that case fibre is simply used to
feed uplinks and turnaround
points around the world. In sport
we are also seeing requirements
from broadcasters to provide file
transfer or archiving and those
types of services at an event, as an
add‐on service.
Where are your growth markets?
Our core business is in Europe, and
we see a lot of growth happening
in Latin America, Africa and still in
Asia. Ultimately, however, it’s the
sporting events themselves that
determine our areas of focus –
where we anticipate and meet
broadcast demand for the
multitude of events all year round.
We have talked a lot about
technology and the services we
provide, but one thing is obviously
key: we need to have the trust of
the broadcasters and the rights
holders that we are working with.
We have got to provide a very
reliable service whilst remaining
flexible. The requirements change
and we must be able to adapt to
that and work with the broadcaster
very closely to ensure that we
accommodate them as much as
possible. Building up that trust
with the broadcasters, the host
broadcasters, rights holders and
NRHs in our ability to deliver is
very important. You canʹt delay the
opening ceremony of the Olympics.
What's on your wishlist?
Iʹd like and I expect to see us
incorporating more of these new
technologies into the services that
we provide to broadcasters. For the
immediate future, itʹs Sochi and the
World Cup, then the Olympics in
Rio in 2016; also for football the
Euro in France where GlobeCast
are based. I would expect to be
working very closely with Orange
and UEFA, and bringing in as
much of this new technology as
possible into this major event is
something I look forward to.
Is there ever time to relax?
There’s a nice rhythm to the sports
business – you have events and
then you have a calm period, and
then you move onto the next one. I
like the live, ad hoc nature of the
business.
Liz McParland, thank you.
www.globecast.com
