Eurovision 2014: A deployment in light, projection, sound and pyrotechnics

En el B&W Hallerne Arena, los viejos astilleros en los que se desarrolló el festival, Eurovisión volvió a ser todo un escaparate tecnológico de luz, proyección, sonido y pirotecnia. En total, más de 700 personas entre cámaras, personal de producción y técnicos, han hecho posible uno de los mayores espectáculos audiovisuales del año con un presupuesto de 32 millones de euros.

The Eurovision Song Festival is undoubtedly one of the largest international television events of the year, with participants from the entire continent battling for the title of Best European Song.

Each edition is estimated that it is followed by 125 million viewers in 56 countries, including for the first time this year, China. Organized by the European Union Radiodifusion (UER). Its signal contribution and distribution network, Eurovision, is one of the largest on the planet combining fiber and satellite and serves, among many other events, the festival itself.

Eurovision distributes live broadcast through satellite with a footprint that covers all of Europe and the Middle East. This means that the signal is only necessary to send it once, being able to now be able to transmit the live signal for their spectators.

But perhaps one the most difficult aspects of the Eurovision Festival is the moment of voting, since it entails linking all the participating countries with shipping and return. Managing the millimeter the capacity of its network is a challenge to ensure the moment of the popular vote.

In the nucleus of its network, Eurovision uses Colt high capacity fiber optic connections capable of transmitting data to 10 Gbps providing a “pipe” of large reliable bandwidth that allows managing contributions throughout Europe.

However, when there is no two -way interaction among commentators in different countries, latency becomes the big problem. The satellite adds a time delay, which can even reach two seconds, so Eurovision is forced to play at the same time with fiber latency to adjust the shipping and return channels.

A great technological showcase

En cuanto al B&W Hallerne Arena, los viejos astilleros en los que se desarrolló el festival, Eurovisión volvió a ser todo un escaparate tecnológico de luz, proyección, sonido y pirotecnia.

At the head of the Festival's address was Per Zachariasen, with Claus Zie in the design of the production, running with the retransmission the Danish public radiotelevision Dnesa DR.

As usual, Riedel deployed its network technology for audio, video, data and intercom ensuring full coverage throughout the enclosure.

EVS was in charge of one more year to serve the best moments of the gala with its XT3 server systems and the ipdirector suite.

In the days before the gala, Best Broadcast used the Just Software: Live of Toolsonair to send the interviews and comments collected among the gathered public in the Copenhagen City Hall Plaza. Its integrated playout engine provides great quality and back-to-backout of mixed codecs, pixel-looking relationships and size, especially in what to the emission of the video clips referred to. The system also allowed to include real -time graphics from the mobile unit.

From the projection point of view, the organization of the festival again opted another year for ship technology, playing as the HDQ-2K40 projector already happened in the last edition. A total of 16 HDQ units combined with 16 HDX-W20 projectors to show the brightest images.

The 2014 Eurovision scenario, chaired this year by a large 20 × 35 meters LED cube, consisted of 120 modules with a special surface in LED for projection, which allowed the visualization of images or animations. Mediacec was the company in charge of the integration of ship technology in this configuration, as it did last year.

The stage, designed by Claus Zier, was 20 meters high and 1,200 square meters, which makes it the largest ever built in the history of Denmark. For the lifting of the structure, which remembered the shipyards, 40 tons of steel lined with 3,000 fluorescent lights, 730 LED, and an acrylic polycarbonate screen that allowed the projection of the images in each of the performances were used. It is noteworthy that the ground was sensitive to touch so that the images from the boat projectors could interact with the artists as they walked for it.

En cuanto al audio, en el B&W Hallerne Arena, un sistema de PA de más de 11.400 kilos junto a 150 globos gigantes diseñados con 60.000 metros cuadrados de tela permitieron contar con un sonido cristalino en todo el recinto con un eco de apenas tres segundos.
For the gala, the DR used twenty -two cameras. In total, more than 700 people among cameras, production personnel and technicians, among others, have made possible one of the largest audiovisual shows of the year with a budget of 32 million euros.