Tokyo Olympic Games: Global Rightsholders

UNITED KINGDOM

Eurosport Discovery unveiled an enhanced three-story, multiple ‘room’ Cube for the Tokyo Olympics that includes cuttingedge analytical capabilities and a more gamified viewing experience for sports fans.

The new extended reality Cube studio was the centerpiece of Discovery’s coverage of Tokyo 2020, showcasing new software and motion graphics that pushed the Cube’s analytical capabilities to a whole new level, while giving viewers the chance to deep dive into the details of why an athlete won gold — or did not.

The multi-location Cube studio for Tokyo 2020 featured seven different immersive real-time video environment locations, or ‘rooms’, which were used for different shows, bespoke 360-degree beauty shots of Tokyo as backdrops, newly released 3D Zoom software to allow viewers to see wider panoramic views of Cube locations, and a virtual set extension with cameras able to roam around the digital environment, taking the gamification of this presentation studio to new heights.

On the new enhanced Cube, Scott Young, Discovery’s SVP of content and production, said from Tokyo: “Well, this is an extraordinary piece of kit. Virtual studios are not new in the world, but what Alex Dinnin [Discovery Sports’ head of graphics and innovation] and his team have created is extraordinary. It’s world-class.”

Added Young: “This is virtual studios next level. It’s quite extraordinary.”

Coverage within the Cube followed the Japanese clock, creating night and day effects, and the presentation moved around the virtual three-story building to different ‘rooms’ to suit each show style, from informal to formal.

BBC BBC Sport’s onsite presence for the Tokyo Olympics may have been smaller than originally planned, but the socially distanced crew worked hard using two 10Gbps circuits to transport Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) content feeds back to Salford in Greater Manchester, where the production team kept fans engaged with what was a very successful games for Team GB. And it resonated with viewers.

“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from the UK and we’re very pleased with the audience who are taking to it like this is a regular Games,” said Jonny Bramley, executive producer of major events for the BBC.

Of course, this was ultimately not a regular Games and, like all the broadcasters at the IBC, the BBC had to make some big adjustments. A key feature back home was a completely virtual studio as all commentators, hosts and analysis is being done in the UK.

“We realized it was going to be physically impossible for us to replicate what we had planned to do with on-set crews, so we established the studio back in Salford,” said Bramley. “And the commentary positions here didn’t meet with our socially distanced guidelines, so we’ve pretty much moved all of our commentary home and the comment off screen.”

As for the virtual studio, Bramley said it worked out great and gave the effect of the BBC team being on top of a skyscraper in Tokyo. “It’s really effective and as a virtual studio has been a success,” he said. “We’re very happy with that.”

Ron Chakraborty, BBC Sport’s lead executive for major events, added: “So many viewers think we’re in Tokyo, I think it’s a really great compliment for the technical teams and production management that have made this work and made the viewers think that this is a normal BBC Olympics production.”

There were 32 international circuits to Salford and the BBC also took the host MDS commentary package. Ten commentary booths back home were also in use and one of the ongoing themes in discussions with any sports broadcaster over the past 16 months was what is lost when commentators are not onsite.

BBC Sport chief engineer Richard Morgan said that a total of 46 HD circuits (the 32 international plus 14 news) are outbound and five are inbound and that technically things are going well.

“The idea of remote is nothing new to us whatsoever so that’s not an issue,” said Morgan. “And I’m sure we’ll be doing more remote because of sustainability as the challenge is a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030. But COVID did push us slightly further [into remote].”

United Kingdom: Jonny Bramley (left) and Richard Morgan inside the BBC production center at the IBC.

IRELAND

Irish broadcaster RTÉ produced over 270 hours of Tokyo 2020 coverage on TV channel, RTÉ2, and 408 hours of live coverage across the RTÉ Sport website and the RTÉ News app, celebrating the achievements of the largest Irish Olympic contingent of athletes in the country’s history.

In addition, the Irish broadcaster carried out its first remote production for a live event. “We had a remote presentation position for a live show for the first time ever, for the overnight program,” said Cliona O’Leary, deputy head of TV sport at RTÉ. “The workflow to have a remote presentation in Tokyo and control room in Dublin is a big innovation for us,” noted O’Leary. “This was conceived by our execs Mark McKenna [TV producer] and Kevin Corcoran [executive producer], and facilitated by Tom Nugent, RTÉ’s technical lead in Tokyo, and others in RTÉ.”

“Our remote production was a first for us and it was very successful,” continued O’Leary. “We sub-let our presentation studio in Tokyo from the BBC and they gave us space, power and fiber connectivity. We also had a two-way with David Gillick, Olympian, who worked as our resident expert across all sports and he was our reporter on the athletics as well.”

This year, much like BBC Sport, RTÉ was more limited in what it could show due to Discovery’s rights deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). O’Leary commented: “We bought linear rights to the

Ireland: Jacqui Hurley, presenter for RTÉ, hard at work in Japan

Olympics through Discovery. We are taking all of the feeds from OBS through the multi offering and we have DX feeds coming into our office in the IBC in Tokyo, which we switch to on occasion over there when we have an Irish athlete competing that is not on the multis.”

RTÉ Online provided 24 hour a day coverage over the course of the Games. The results and reactions from all the Irish athletes on each day were published as they happened, while live blogs were published on all the action from the Games through the night. There were athlete profiles, exclusive video interviews and analysis from RTÉ’s team of pundits, as well as the breaking news from Japan, RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.

O’Leary commented on how RTÉ’s crew in Tokyo was affected by the pandemic. “Our team on the ground was reduced significantly because of COVID,” continues O’Leary, “but we managed to bring back interviews with all of our Irish athletes and our friends in the BBC helped us to achieve that. We are very grateful to our colleagues in the BBC who are always so helpful to us.”

Said O’Leary on the crew running the production: “We had a team of 29 people in Tokyo rather than 60, which we would have normally sent, led by Paula [Fahy]. Within that, we had six camera people who were covering interviews from our 116 Irish athletes across 19 sports. It was the largest Irish team of competitors [ever in our history].”

FRANCE

France Télévisions had 190 people, 10 ENG crews, seven edit suites, and a unique studio set-up where they had a prime location overlooking Tokyo Bay. What made it unique? All the talent was back in Paris and greenscreened into the set, which was located at the France House, about a mile from the IBC.

“This is the first time we do a virtual studio from 10,000 kilometers away so it’s a new experience for us,” said Frederic Gaillard, head of production for sports at France TV. “We have seven cameras in the studio, and they all go back to Paris where the studio show is produced.”

About 100 people were back home in Paris finalizing coverage, which was seen on France 2, 3, and 4. Master control in Tokyo pulled in the 76 OBS feed and routed 34 of those to the control rooms in Paris. There were also four return paths.

“We also have a digital service where all the sports are available so everyone in France can see anything,” added Gaillard.

Athletics had the biggest France TV presence with four unilateral cameras. Those signals were sent to Paris to be cut with commentary, which was done live from the stadium.

As for UHD HDR, normally France TV would carry it but the cost of getting those signals back home was cost prohibitive.

Up next? Getting ready for the Beijing Games, a process that begins with sending the equipment back to Paris as rental equipment needs to be returned. But expect the France TV team to pretty much have the same workflow in place.

France: Frederic Gaillard in master control at the Tokyo IBC.

GERMANY

ZDF and ARD produced 17 hours of live programming per day on its main feed for the Olympics, plus 10 online streams that are being shown on the ARD and ZDF MediaTek over the top (OTT) platform, making this the biggest production so far in ZDF’s history. It also was heavily split between Tokyo and a National Broadcast Centre in Mainz, Germany.

ZDF decided to start the build of its NBC in 2019 when it realized that the 12-day gap between the end of Euro 2020 and the start of the Olympics would make it impossible to get equipment from Europe to Tokyo in time (even without a pandemic). The team at the NBC received all signals using Net Insight Nimbra technology for long distance media networking. Once there, an Evertz baseband router, as well as an IP router controlled by Nevion iPath, were used with the latter for multiviewer and online streams.

The temporary NBC was located opposite ZDF’s HQ in an extensive building. While half the office-based area reserved for editorial, a former TV-studio was converted into a chipboard-constructed classic IBC copy over two floors containing 22 editing suites, four production control rooms, and a master control room. The build finished in March 2020, just before Germany hit its first lockdown.

Florian Rathgeber, co-head of engineering, said Riedel was used for communications (with “massive trunking technology” that connected the Riedel mainframes in Tokyo with Riedel mainframes in the NBC.

“We have no big difference compared to [what we’d have if we connected] to mainframes in an OB van; there is no major delay talking to each other,” he said.

Gunnar Darge, ZDF co-head of engineering said the 10 online streams made it the biggest production the German public broadcaster had ever done and much of the work was being done back in Mainz at a National Broadcast Centre.

When German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF originally planned out their Tokyo Olympics plans, they included a studio with a view to Rainbow Bridge and a control room for the studio as well as edit facilities and more. The studio location was shared with Austria’s ORF and

Switzerland’s SRG (each has their own studio) was still located along the water and still had a dramatic view and gave talent a chance to interview athletes in person. Many of the other facilities, however, were not.

Vito Zoiro, ZDF, technical manager, special projects, said the studio was connected directly to production control in Mainz. “We don’t even see the signals here in Tokyo,” he said. “We also have our own cameras from athletics and aquatics going directly to Mainz where there is a sub control room for each.”

Four 10 Gbps circuits from Telstra helped transport signals to the NBC. LiveU systems were also in use, sending ENG signals directly from mixed zones to home. The IBC facility basically passed on the OBS signals as well as audio signals from eight voice over booths (an additional 18 are back home in Mainz).

On the challenges of working with the majority of crew in Germany

and the rest in Tokyo was getting a good workflow in place that everyone understands. It took some time, but everyone caught on quickly.

“I think technology is two steps ahead of the editorial plans and workflows and we can do more [technically today] than the editors can actually anticipate," said Rathgeber. "But it is essential for us to have centralized production, either back home or onsite.”

Germany: Vito Zoiro of ARD/ZDF said that all production control was done out of Mainz for the Tokyo Olympics.

Italy: RAI’s Daniele Gotti in the RAI sports production gallery at the IBC in Tokyo.

ITALY

The first of August is a day that will go down in Italian sports history as Lamont Jacobs won the gold medal in the men’s 100 meters only minutes after fellow countryman Gianmarco Tamberi captured gold in the men’s high jump. And Italian national broadcaster RAI was onsite in force as more than 240 staffers are in Tokyo to fully produce the coverage which is seen back home.

“We have 25 people from radio and then on TV 125 production and technical personnel and then the rest are journalists and commentators,” said RAI’s Daniele Gotti, Olympics project manager.

Two full production galleries were at the IBC with one for the Olympics coverage and one for news coverage. With 40 channels of EVS and a separate audio area, it was ready to take on the task of producing a full day of coverage every day of the games. Three signals were sent back to Italy, one each for the Olympics coverage and news plus a third for a late-night “best of” program. While most broadcasters leaned heavily into remote production, back home RAI went the other way, producing everything from Tokyo.

“We didn’t change our plan from last year and just a couple of people decided at the end not to come,” said Gotti. “But, basically, this is the same production plan as last year.”

For the first time, RAI rented an external studio from OBS. It was located in the OBS studio tower in Odaiba that overlooks the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Bay.

Six ENG crews were also part of the plan, using bonded cellular packs to get signals back from mixed zones in athletics, swimming, and fencing. And the team also made use of the OBS Content+ system.

“It’s the first time we’ve used it and it’s absolutely a good system and we take a lot of stuff from it,” said Gotti.

FINLAND

Finland’s YLE was planning a mostly hybrid production model, with a team in Tokyo producing the athletics coverage for viewers back home, but the COVID pandemic required a shift in plans and an increase in signals being sent home: there were 20 lines connecting the IBC in Tokyo to the OB1 production truck and a flypack parked outside YLE headquarters in Helsinki.

“We need roughly eight to 10 lines for athletics back to Helsinki, and we also have 76 EVS ports in OB1,” said Kaj Flood, YLE, senior technical advisor. “It’s completely full right now.”

A Lawo VSM control system in Tokyo allowed the team in Finland to automatically get the source they desire.

“With automated switching,” added Flood, “everything is fine. The VSM takes care of the switching or fast changes.”

The onsite production presence included seven ENG crews with LiveU units, two crews in mixed zones (at athletics and Olympic Stadium), and a hard camera on the main camera platform at Olympic Stadium.

Finland: Kaj Flood, YLE, senior technical advisor

“We have commentators onsite at athletics,” Flood noted, “but the rest of the sports are called off-tube in Helsinki, where we have 25 off-tube positions.”

The OBS Content+ system made a difference, allowing both the team in Tokyo — where there were three editing suites — and the team back home to find the content they need.

“We’re IP,” Flood pointed out, “so we have Lawo, vMix, and Arista switchers and NTT encoders and decoders.”

YLE’s Olympics broadcast began around 8:30 a.m. and continued to 11 p.m. It’s complemented by five live streams of content.

“The ratings have been quite good,” said Flood. “Finnish people just like to watch sports.”

CANADA

Events like the Olympics have always given CBC a chance to bring together its Montreal team, which serves French-speaking Canadians, and its Toronto team, which serves English-speaking viewers. The pandemic may have reduced the number of personnel onsite in Tokyo to 140, but it didn’t dampen the spirit.

“We have crews coming from Montreal, Toronto, and all across Canada when the Olympics come, and we become one family. That is what we’re seeing,” said Francois Messier, CBC/Radio-Canada team leader. “There is a feeling of collaboration between the teams, and it’s amazing. It’s really a feeling of family.”

He noted that the team in Tokyo consisted primarily of reporters, who were in the mixed zones, and personnel to support commentary from the aquatics and athletics venues. CBC News was also being supported.

According to CBC Systems Technologist Sanjay Rana, two 10-Gbps circuits were used to send a multiviewer of all the available OBS feeds to Montreal and Toronto. The team there selected the 20 feeds to send over the Zayo network in JPEG 2000 at 120 Mbps.

Two main broadcast-control rooms in Montreal and Toronto were involved, and the broadcast alternated from one control room to the other between the different programs as part of a COVID protocol.

Viewers back home got 23 hours of Olympic content a day on the main networks; subchannels featured long-form events like tennis, soccer, and golf. Bell and Rogers got content out to viewers via TSN 1 and 2 and Sportsnet, and a distribution deal with Amazon served the OTT market.

“We were supposed to have two studios here, but it was decided to keep those in Canada,” said Messier. “Our main hosts are back home, but we have a green-screen studio here for athlete interviews. That is a cheaper way than Discovery, but it’s our version of the Cube.”

Also, in Tokyo were 16 LiveU units: 12 for the ENG crews, three for news, and one installed with Team Canada in the athlete’s village. According to CBC Technical Producer Sylvain Archambault, a camera, LiveU, and a robocam with a mic stand gave athletes a chance to step up and take part in interviews.

One interesting aspect of CBC’s operations was that, in early 2020, the French-language team in Montreal moved into a new building that uses ST 2110 IP for signal transport. The English-language broadcast center in Toronto, however, is still HD-SDI. Sylvain Taillefer, CBC, technical engineer, said ST 2110 was used for audio in the voiceover booths but the rest of the facility is in SDI.

Canada: From left: CBC’s Sanjay Rana, Francois Messier, Sylvain Archambault, and Sylvain Taillefer

RUSSIA

Channel One Russia delivered 12 hours of live sports content to viewers back home, and its production philosophy was unique this year: a production gallery that integrated commercials and other elements in Tokyo and sent a complete show back home. It was also the first Olympic broadcaster to use EVS IPD-VIA.

EVS IPD-VIA is an asset-management system using web-based HTML5 applications and virtualized machines, which allowed the Channel One team to collaborate and produce from any device anywhere.

“They have four NLE stations, three off-tube studios, graphics, and then ingest, contribution, and playout,” said Olivier Dwelshauvers, EVS Channel One senior project manager. “IPDirector is being used for playout, and IPD-VIA controls ingest.”

Two EVS PAM suites were in use with IPD-VIA, providing the applications needed for live-media-content browsing, control, edit, and playout.

“The editors edit in low resolution,” Dwelshauvers explained, “and then an EVS plug-in renders in high resolution and gives the team here access, or they can send it to Moscow for contribution to news or sports.”

It also provided access to the OBS Content+, and he noted that the team had 20 record channels for recording the live paths but can also dive into Content+ for action that might have been missed

Although many broadcasters in Tokyo adapted their plans from last year, Channel One remained steady. The EVS IPD-VIA would have been part of its plans if the Games had been held in 2020, and having the production-control room onsite allows the team at home to remain focused on local news and sports. – Global coverage by Ken Kerschbaumer, Heather McLean, and Jo Ruddoc

Russia: Olivier Dwelshauvers oversaw EVS operations for Russia’s Channel One, including the Olympics debut of the EVS IPD-VIA.