NBC delivers three-screen Olympics
Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Brad Dick
Here’s how the network produced everything from HD to Web and mobile programming using IT and IP technologies.
ProCast CDN's protocols permit file transfer speeds that can be orders of magnitude greater than FTP, especially over long distances like that from Beijing to New York. Two of the network's OC3 (150Mb/s) links back to New York were controlled by the ProCast CDN to speed file transfer.
Once the proxy files appeared in New York, shot pickers used a Blue Order MediaArchive DAM to browse, view and edit the content. The shot pickers were primarily responsible for shot selection for Web-based content. They would pick the shots, insert graphics and then drop it into a work folder that directed the file where to go. They could also send the content to specific locations. Some content might be targeted for an Avid editor based in New York, or even an editor based in China. The shots could also be fed directly to the Web system or to a MediaDeck for playout.
A different workflow was needed for HD content. Using proxies, a U.S.-based editor would develop an EDL and send it back to Beijing, where it was received by a MOG Solutions server. The server then retrieved the matching high-resolution images from the MediaGrid and conformed them into a single file, which was returned to New York. Those files could be further processed at 30 Rock or sent directly to the Anystream system for Web, VOD or mobile playout.
NBC rewinds
For the summer games, NBC developed a sports feed called “rewind.” Rewinds are actually live streams coupled with recorded metadata. The combination of streaming and content-specific metadata allowed the Web viewer to navigate through the content based on the metadata. For instance, a viewer could interactively select any video clip based on the statistics. If the viewer wanted to see a goal by a player that took place 11 minutes into the game, all he had to do was click on the appropriate metadata. The stream jumps to that point and plays out. NBC calls it user-driven highlights. The network produced approximately 3300 highlight clips a day to feed multiple new media platforms.
This production platform was essentially an automated distribution system, capable of flipping the file to whatever format the recipient needed. A three-minute clip of “goals of the day” could be sent to the Anystream encoder, which might make 50 copies of content in multiple file formats, all based on the destinations' needs.
“This was a huge part of what I like to call a very long-distance, file-based workload,” Mazza said.
Something old, something new
Mazza is a bit of a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. In Torino, he said that the Olympics isn't a place to experiment with new technology because there is no room for mistakes.
“It's true. We say that,” Mazza said. “We couldn't run with that same level of risk for all those new things on the broadcast side because there's just too much risk.”
However, when it came to trying new things, Mazza says, “We ran a whole bunch of new things that had the risk meter essentially pegged. We couldn't have done that without both new technology and trying some new ideas.”
He adds, “The key is balance. You ask how many people are going to see the stream, how visible it is. If somebody tunes in to the Web at eight in the morning and they were thinking there was going be a certain clip and there was a slightly different clip, or we were trying to make 100 clips and we only made 90, most people won't know the difference. So we keep that in mind in determining how risky we're willing to be. But, we certainly pushed the envelope big time with the digital media arena.”
The continuing challenge
When asked why he keeps taking on this Olympic assignment, Mazza laughs, saying, “I find each game is a totally new challenge. I couldn't have told you two years ago that we were going to be launching all these new media projects. Sure, I knew something was coming, but we didn't know it would be this big. Our production staff and executives say, ‘Hey, we need to get to this point.’ They don't tell us how to get there; they just say, ‘Here's the starting point, here's the budget — you need to get to this point.’ It's up to us to figure it out.”
He adds, “With the Olympic broadcasts, there are always going to be new challenges. And as much as we try to manage the risk and say we don't want to try new things because a show is too high-profile, or there's too much to lose, we always end up doing it. For me and the team, it's kind of a love-hate relationship. We're preaching conservative working products, nothing new, nothing earth-shattering. Yet we really are doing earth-shattering things each time. That's kind of exciting, and it can even be scary at times.”
Mazzo laughs, saying, “But it's a good challenge.”
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