NAB 2018: NEP To Showcase Innovative Support Solutions For Discovery’s Inaugural Olympics Coverage

NEP Group is exhibiting at NAB 2018, weeks after successfully supporting multiple clients, including Discovery and its leading sports brand Eurosport, at PyeongChang 2018. NEP staff will be on hand teo answer questions about its comprehensive set of broadcast, live event and media solutions used to cover over 100 medal events and 18 days of Olympic competition. Demonstrations of its media asset management tool, Mediabank, and NEP’s augmented reality (AR) capabilities will be available at the show.

During the Games, 14 NEP Divisions provided Discovery its glass-to-glass solutions so they could deliver its first-ever coverage of the Games across 48 countries in Europe on free-to-air, pay-tv and every minute online across the continent for the very first time. More than 20 venues were supported by 300 NEP technical experts on the ground in South Korea and 100 in NEP Europe locations, including 17 studios. The successful implementation of these solutions for Discovery was made possible through NEP’s unique infrastructure, including several hubs and facilities across Europe.

“Discovery set the ambitious goal of reaching more people on more screens for the Olympic Winter Games than ever before, redefining the viewing experience for viewers and fans across Europe. It was a massive team effort to broadcast 4000 hours of coverage, in 48 markets, more than 20 languages and from multiple locations to millions of viewers across the continent,” says Simon Farnsworth, Discovery executive vice president, European and Sports Technology. “We are pleased to have honoured this commitment at the Games. Critical to our success was enhancing our in-house capabilities with technical expertise proven at the biggest sporting events in the world.  NEP integrated seamlessly into our global operation and provided additional technical experts, innovative solutions and a true spirit of collaboration and partnership, on-site in South Korea and throughout Europe, which played a significant role in our delivery of the Games across Europe.”

NEP’s Support Of Discovery Included:

• Custom build out of the International Broadcast Centre, which fully integrated more than 85 racks of equipment that underpinned its operations hub, production control rooms, audio suites and edit facilities supplied by NEP, supporting directors, producers, journalists and production engineers during the Games.
• Centralized sourcing of 50 remote commentary feeds to synchronize multiple video and audio feeds simultaneously, including auto-audio mixing, between remote commentator booths at events in Korea and commentary booths throughout Europe.
• A virtual studio based in Hilversum, The Netherlands, for the fast-paced Winter Games Today live daily show on Eurosport 1 (Eurosport Benelux) and available for download through the Eurosport Player. Eurosport Benelux used the Hilversum virtual studio and NEP’s AR capabilities as a replacement for a real studio. Only occupying a physical footprint of 5×5 meters, NEP’s graphics teams transformed Eurosport’s coffee corner into an entire virtual set (the “green box”), including a virtual LED wall and a number of AR layered elements.
• An Oslo-based broadcast center built for Discovery Communications. As part, NEP supplied studios and facilities with AR graphics to support the daily production of multiple shows: OL Direkte: Studio (“Olympics Live: Studio”), OL i dag (“Olympics Today”), and OL-Kveld (“Late Night Olympics”).
• Mediabank, NEP’s cloud-based toolbox of workflow solutions, to easily ingest, tag, review, edit and distribute Discovery’s content across a dozen European viewing markets.

NEP’s broadcast services, including seven outside broadcast/mobile units, snowmobile coverage, flypacks and more, rounded out these solutions for clients.

“It has been a tremendous opportunity and privilege to support Discovery on their inaugural Olympic Games,” says Keith Lane, vice president of Client Services for Discovery / Eurosport, NEP UK. “NEP is unique in the industry in that we have the depth of technical talent and diversity of service offerings to be able to deliver this kind of large-scale support. This event was special in comparison to anything we’ve done before – the number of countries, regions, cultures and languages involved, plus the complexity of our solutions, was staggering. We have some of the best people in the business, and I’m proud of what they did and how much they accomplished for our clients. We are very much looking forward to working with Discovery’s team again.”