The Paris 2024 Olympic Games showcase the latest advances in broadcast technology
This weekend the Paris 2024 Olympic Games open, where, as usual, the broadcast industry puts its latest technologies to the test. Isidoro Moreno, Head of Engineering of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), addresses some of the main challenges such as virtual mobile units, XR studio, remote production, cloud technology, UHD, immersive audio...
The entire broadcast technology industry, regardless of its place in the production or distribution flow, wants to be part of the Summer Olympics. Few can confirm their participation, apart from a handful of technological partners, although each and every one of them shares “confidentially” their clients and partners who have been part of this appointment. "You know the underwater swimming camera? Don't say anything, but it's ours." Who hasn't heard these confessions in the hallways of Amsterdam's RAI in the fall after one of these events?
That one of your solutions becomes used by the production team of OBS, the organization whose mission is to provide the best possible coverage of the Olympic Games in all their variants (summer, winter, Paralympic, youths...), is a goal for itself. It implies that said tool is going to be deployed in a maximum demanding environment to be the protagonist of global coverage. Whether that retransmission is personalized or not for each of the rights-holders, technology will play a fundamental role both in the frontend, capturing the spectacular nature of sports and supporting its narrative, as in the backend, with production and distribution processes that are at the forefront of sports production.
Los Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which will be held from today, Friday, July 26 to Sunday, August 11, will once again have a mammoth technological deployment which will showcase the latest advances in the universe of broadcast technology. Isidoro Moreno, engineering manager OBS, addresses the philosophy behind the broadcast of the next Olympic Games. OO., advances top-level news such as its new virtual mobile units, anticipates a new panorama in which the relocation is postulated as a pillar of the productions and, ultimately, anticipates how the Olympic Games will once again shake the game board in anticipation processes and workflows that will mark the industry until, at least, 2028.
The OBS mission
Historically, local national television was in charge of the broadcast production of each edition of the Olympic Games. This way of working provided logistical and operational benefits, but it implied a loss of know-how from edition to edition, no matter how many collaborative efforts the engineering teams undertook.
This approach changed around 1992, the year in which Barcelona hosted what is still considered one of the best editions of all time: "Everyone talks a lot about Barcelona. There were important advances in coverage, technology used, new systems or ways of doing production, but a idea germinal for big events: have a host broadcaster or a division within the Olympic Committee itself that would open a great international collaboration in which many television stations from around the world will contribute professionals. And not only engineers, but also producers or filmmakers with a lot of experience in specific sports.”
OBS has accumulated a notable track record in the realization of the JJ. OO. which has allowed “the best possible television production to be carried out for the event with the necessary technological and technical means.”
According to Moreno, this model worked, although limited by processes such as knowledge transfer, which made it necessary to “start, in part, from scratch” with each edition of the Olympics. OO.. This factor ended up leading to the creation of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), a division completely owned by the International Olympic Committee that guarantees continuity in the quality of coverage and achieves greater efficiency in resources.
Thanks to this mission that began in 2001, OBS has accumulated a notable history in carrying out the Olympic Games. OO. which has allowed “the best possible television production to be carried out for the event with the necessary technological and technical means.” “That is our mission, our function and our desire,” says the company's engineering manager.
From Gangwon to Paris: a crucial proof of concept
One of the advantages of OBS accumulating experience, resources and professionals in the broadcast production of the Olympics. OO. is the consolidation of work lines. This allows a technology or workflow to be tested on a small scale to ensure its suitability for the next big event on the Olympic calendar: “It happened to us with ultra high definition in the case of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. It was the first time we did 8K and 4K in parallel, a workflow that we consolidated for Tokyo 2020,” Moreno recalls.
There are dozens of similar tests, on a larger or smaller scale, in each of the Olympic celebrations. At the last Youth Olympic Games, which were held at the beginning of the year in Gangwon (South Korea), the proof of concept for the new OBS virtual mobile unit, defined by Moreno as a “very ambitious, very innovative project that we believe will have a great future.”
The new OBS virtual mobile unit arises as a logistical and technological response to the biannual nature of the Olympic Games. OO. In order not to have unused assets given the spaces between competitions, as well as to be able to enjoy the latest technology, the company had always opted for rental to make its creative and technological vision a reality. This also includes mobile units, vehicles that, when offered by international service providers, have a very varied infrastructure to provide the flexibility necessary to produce all types of content. "Starting from this concept, we came up with an idea. What if instead of having so much dedicated material and hardware, what I do is have standard hardware?" says Moreno.
“Las virtual mobile units They allow us to avoid having elements that we do not use and assume their cost, because when moving a mobile unit I also move those resources that we don't need. Furthermore, we can have a much more efficient service, since we can activate the software only when we need it”.
To make its vision a reality, OBS has relied on servers edge of the latest generation to interconnect the standard hardware of your mobile units with the software of “each of the elements we need” and simulate, in this way, a traditional mobile unit. Moreno considers that this approach implies important advantages: "It allows us to avoid having elements that we do not use and assume their cost, because when moving a mobile unit I also move those resources that we do not need. In addition, we can have a much more efficient service, since we can activate the software only when we need it. We also avoid moving large mobile units around the world to make them available for the Olympic Games; For Tokyo, we had many European mobile units that were traveling for weeks.”
Moreno affirms that this new OBS approach based on virtual mobile units today “it's not much cheaper” than the traditional rental model that the production company has been following, although it has a “much more promising future.”
Is the industry ready for the virtual OBS mobile unit?
Building a virtual mobile unit involves significant planning work. conceptualization and engineering, as well as requiring a sufficiently consolidated offer from the broadcast industry to guarantee virtualized solutions that can function reliably in the critical environments in which OBS will operate. This has led Moreno and his team to explore the market and hold dozens of conversations with all types of manufacturers, a complex process that has come to fruition: "Most of the elements were already available, but others that we understood were going to be easy have been especially complex. For example, We had a hard time finding an audio mixer based on cloud”.
“The project of virtual mobile units what we did in Gangwon 2024, in which we especially wanted to check whether the delays were reasonable for make it viable in UHD format, it worked at perfection”.
The most critical element, and the one that cost OBS the most to choose and implement, was the orchestration system: "We needed software that was capable of talking to all the elements, but we couldn't find it. In the end, we had to make a mix considerable, since we have many different suppliers and not all of them have the same level of openness for their application," explains Moreno, who justifies this lack of supply in the novelty of this production system: "This is going to be a long process, but we believe that it will be standardized, which will make orchestration much easier in the future.”
He proof of concept of virtual mobile units, launched in Gangwon, met all the expectations of the OBS team. Paris 2024 will be the litmus test: “The project we did, in which we especially wanted to check if the delays were reasonable to make it viable in UHD format, worked perfectly.”
11,000 hours of content
Virtual mobile units, linked to more traditional production resources and with the capture offered by more than 1000 cameras, will make up a production with more than 11,000 hours of content, of which nearly 4,500 hours will correspond to live sports production and ceremonies. Everything, so that the rights-holders have the resources they need to convey to the spectators the intrahistory of the competition and help get to know their athletes: "One of the objectives we have is to interview all the athletes, whether they have medals or not. In this way, we guarantee that each television can have specific content." The narrative It is another of the engines that has pushed OBS to redouble its commitment to content. As Moreno comments: "At the Youth Olympics we have been able to interview athletes from 14 to 18 years old who can become multi-medallists. This way we can trace their history."
OBS has worked intensely to generate automatic part generation processes based on metadata e artificial intelligence trained by machine learning and always supervised by a operator human.
Beyond live streaming of tests and interviews, OBS will offer summaries, images of the Olympic atmosphere, musical montages or informative pieces from the Olympic News Channel. This news, which in Beijing reached 400 news units lasting between three and four minutes, will be addressed with the usual neutral perspective that accompanies Olympic competition. But what happens to those broadcasters who seek to have specific content focused on their country, a region or a particular athlete?
To address this situation, OBS has worked intensely to generate automatic part generation processes based on metadata e artificial intelligence trained by machine learning and always supervised by a human operator. “We will give as an option to broadcasters who can parameterize your particular wishes; They will be a series of limited desires, but it will allow them to generate content in a very efficient way," explains Moreno. This system, which will have a workflow through "pointers" that allow the duration of each suggested piece to be adapted, does not seek to reduce jobs, but rather to help create "much more content" that "due to time or human capacity you could miss but that could be very interesting."
IBC: less space and energy consumption
At the same time as the hours of coverage of the Olympic Games. OO. of Paris 2024 reach record numbers, the IBC (International Broadcast Center) of the competition will be a 13% smaller than Tokyo 2020, just as it will consume a 44% less energy. The efficiency, in this way, is confirmed as one of the key values of the competition; an optimization of resources that, as Moreno comments, could not have been possible a few years ago: "Technology gives us more and more options for what we want to do. We are increasingly more efficient and we make more retransmissions by more different methods. We will continue using satellite, but also fiber optics and even internet for distribution."
"He IBC is slowly becoming a space closest to that of office work (…). It no longer seems that it is so essential to ride large television systems.
The improvements in distribution implemented by the broadcast industry and favored by the consolidation of the IP world have allowed radio broadcasters to do without transporting large equipment to take advantage of the distribution capabilities offered by OBS itself: “The IBC is little by little becoming a space closest to office work, in which there are ENG teams that arrive with their computer, edit their particular material, and have the necessary connectivity to distribute content. It no longer seems that it is so essential to set up large television systems.”
The IP in the Paris 2024 broadcast
After the launch in Tokyo 2020 of the transport of content through the IP world, Paris 2024 will once again focus on overcome the limitations of SDI in parallel to the evolution of the possibilities offered by the Telco world and the first steps of the broadcast world towards this field: "With SDI, the use of bandwidth was not entirely efficient. To make a UHD you needed 12G, but it turns out that the links communications standard were 10, 40 or 100, multiples that are not necessarily 12G. The IP world allows you to use bandwidth much better,” says Moreno.
The workflow will be similar, therefore, to the one carried out in the Japanese capital: “Since we generated the signal at the sports headquarters and transmitted it to the IBC, we made a transport from 2022/7, which allows the same content to be placed on two different lines and, in the event that one of the two lines breaks down, recover it at the destination without packet loss." Another issue is the delivery of content directly to broadcasters, which will be offered with links both in 12G as in SMPTE ST 2110: “This allows us to make a slower transition, since not all broadcasters transit at the same time.”
The delivery of content directly to the broadcasters will be offered with links in both 12G as in SMPTE ST 2110: “This allows us to make a slower transition, since not all broadcasters transit at the same time”.
For Moreno and his team, it is necessary respond to the needs of each of the broadcasters they serve: "We did high definition in Barcelona 92, but televisions really began to adapt to HD around the years 2000 and we did not do complete coverage until Beijing 2008. I also remember how in Sydney 2000 40% of the links were SDI transmission and 60% were analog. Two years later, in Salt Lake City, the percentages were exchanged, and in Athens “In 2024 we made everything digital.”
“We have a backward compatibility obligation which requires us to ensure that any client can have a format that allows them to do their job correctly. This of course limits us, but on the other hand it is a challenge to be able to satisfy all needs efficiently. The same thing happens with the audio: we make a 5.4.1, but we also worry that the user can receive the mix perfectly in stereo,” Romero specifies.
Does remoteness make sense in the Olympics? OO summer?
A constant in sports production outside the Olympic Games are the remote production workflows, tested in top-level competitions and, in fact, assumed by the company itself OBS at events like Youth Olympics. "We have done many small events with a remote production format and 100% of the distribution was remote. We had activities at each venue and we did a passthrough at the IBC to transmit the signals on our international network and transmit them in Madrid,” Moreno clarifies.
This workflow fits with Youth Games, given that the vast majority of broadcasters are not present with their own deployments in the IBC itself. The case of Paris 2024 will be the opposite: “It does not make much sense for us to produce in Paris, send it to Madrid, and return it to Paris so that a man who is at the headquarters of Equestrian have your signs,” explains Moreno.
“If you want to do remote production, OBS will provide all the facilities so that the broadcaster can access any content wherever you are, and decide whether to build your coverage local, remote or hybrid way”
Despite this, the next JJ. OO. will have remote contribution workflows that will allow each broadcaster to choose the way they want to interact with the broadcasters. feeds OBS officers, as well as customize your own broadcasts: "We are extending services that were previously impossible, such as having a copy of a camera that you can have at the headquarters of each discipline, at the IBC or directly in your office. This makes the level of remoteness depend on the broadcaster itself. There are some broadcasters who manage their operations remotely, while others decide, either due to economic capacity or their own editorial line, to build everything locally."
"Therefore, if you want to do remote production, OBS will provide all the facilities so that the broadcaster can access any content wherever they are, and decide whether to build their coverage of local, remote or hybrid way”, points out the head of engineering about the production company's ability to adapt.
UHD: standard in Paris… and alternative among broadcasters
The distance between the IPTV world and the offering by traditional broadcasters regarding UHD extends to Olympic content. The OBS team, as in Tokyo 2020, will bet on a 100% UHD production in 4K HDR resolution, although the downconversion will continue to be a priority among many of the rights-holders of the next JJ. OO..: “Many of the broadcasters who were interested in the UHD HDR format for Tokyo 2020 They ended up broadcasting in 1080p HDR since the jump could be very expensive. We found that there was little interest in UHD; There were much fewer people than we thought. This made us put a lot of effort into making a good conversion so that there was compatibility and that even those who had SDR televisions could see the competition in the best possible way.”
Looking ahead to Paris 2024, OBS is prepared to provide its clients with the highest quality content, although until the last minute they will not know which is once again the most widespread option among the rights-holders: “The majority of broadcasters are asking us both HD and UHD. Little by little they are beginning to realize that it is a very big improvement, costs have decreased and, furthermore, viewers have changed: if before they were passive and it was the television stations that forced the evolution of the market, now they are asking for the highest quality. The transition may be much faster than expected,” reflects Moreno.
He 8K o UHD2 It will also have new test fields at Paris 2024 with displays in the ceremonies, 3×3 basketball, breaking and the tests of skateboarding in its modalities Street y Park. Moreno does not hesitate to highlight the benefits of this format, such as “a great resolution close to cinema film” or “a color spectrum that is close to reality”, but recognizes that its scope will be very limited due to the shortage of 8K compatible televisions or the limitations of distribution channels. These resolutions also imply challenges in terms of production: "We do not have 100% of the cameras that we want to use in 8K. For example, some mini cameras either do not have the resolutions, or do not have an adequate transfer mode, since the radio frequency links that we use have latencies in the transfer in 8K of up to 10 seconds that we cannot accept for live broadcasts."
Evolving XR with a virtual studio in the Olympic Village
The spectacle and storytelling options offered by the extended reality In the sports field, it has represented one of the greatest evolutions in the broadcasting of sports content in recent years. OBS, pioneers in this discipline, will continue to delve deeper into this type of deployment in numerous tests, accompanying these graphics displays with improvements from the world of AI: "We are trying to see the spin of the ping pong ball to show the effects they have. Other elements that we can represent will be metadata associated with biometric data as long as the corresponding permissions are available, such as when we capture the heart rate in the archery test. "It's not just about having the technology, but you have to take into account some legal limitations."
Within the XR universe, one of the great novelties of OBS offered to its rights-holders involves the development of a virtual studio located in the Olympic Village from which remote interviews can be carried out simulating the presence of presenters and athletes. Starting from movement parameters of camera, tachometer and remote systems, it will be possible to carry out interviews by moving the camera and maintaining the proportions, one of the most frequent failures of previous applications of this technique. Moreno explains that the integration of this system will be simple so that broadcasters can have access to the camera parameters and be able to "simulate the render with standard devices."
Frequencies, 5G and slicing in Paris 2024
Some of the most challenging coverage of Paris 2024 will be those that involve mobility and locations remote, whether there is a marathon or a test of sailing. Many of the connections will be provided by traditional models, such as frequencies (despite the complexity of the issue), fiber or even satellite connections.
He 5G will play a fundamental role in these broadcasts, but to a certain extent it will not be through the promised 5G capabilities slicing, a “somewhat limited” technology currently for Moreno. Resilience, as a fundamental value of the broadcasts of the next Olympic Games, has led OBS to trust in 5G, but with the construction of private networks: “When setting up a private network, frequency management is much easier, since you are using a certified band and the service will be provided to us by the operator in the country.”
A second benefit in this field will be the management of the 5G network for prioritize certain assets as required by each production: “By managing the 5G network privately, we can give priority to certain cameras that we consider to be more important than others.” Moreno acknowledges that OBS is “open to all types of technologies that make production easier for us”, but celebrates the performance of 5G both for its “very flexible” bandwidths representative of the “IP world”.
AI: no turning back
When questioned about those disruptive technologies of vital importance for the coverage of Paris 2024, Moreno does not hesitate to highlight, even above innovations such as his virtual mobile unit or his XR studio, the use of AI in all types of processes. Yes, artificial intelligence and metadata will be used to promote the personalization of content or generating pieces of interest quickly as a possible world record, but this is only the first of dozens of other applications that will see the light progressively: “We have many open projects: both tools that we will use for disciplines, and other proofs of concept that we will apply in the future.”
“We have many open projects around the IA: both tools that we will use to disciplines, like others proofs of concept that we will apply in the future.”
Artificial intelligence will, therefore, have an important role in the production of content for the next Olympic Games. OO., but there is also a “not so visible” side that has been vital to the work of OBS: the planning. "By using these technologies, we have been able to manage the planning of the Olympic Games much more efficiently. Before we had a single event and perhaps we had up to 300 people working in this planning phase. Now we are 160 and we simultaneously carry out the Winter Games, the Summer Games, the Youth Games, the UIC sessions and the Youth Series. This is something that can only be done with tools that help you communicate, share documentation and make decisions in a much more assisted way," Moreno emphasizes, not only without resisting change, but recognizing, once again, how technology is capable of making impossible apparent realities.
A report by Sergio Julián Gómez
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