Beijing Momenta Media, Net Insight Empowers Remote Production for the Wuhan Military Games

The 7th CISM Military World Games (CWG) was held in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China, on October 18-27, 2019. Close to 10,000 military athletes from over 100 countries and regions participated in 25 competition sports and 2 demonstration sports, more than 300 events, including badminton, shooting, swimming, track & field, and basketball.

The Chinese media production company Beijing Momenta Media Ltd was selected by the host broadcaster, as the remote production application provider, and managed together with Net Insight the remote production of 12 matches of badminton, in total 36 hours of broadcasting. 18 HD video feeds from 12 cameras and 6 monitors were transported via Net Insight’s media transport platform Nimbra over a redundant 10G media network from the stadium to the IBC (International Broadcasting Centre), over 37 km apart.

The set-up time before the event was only one day for three engineers at the stadium. During the matches, the staff included six engineers, nine cameramen, one spotter as well as one assistant director at the stadium. And at the IBC production room, the team included nine producers and two engineers.

“We turned to Net Insight, who has long experience and a great reputation in remote production globally, to make this possible. Remote production enables higher quality production with studio infrastructure, direct archive access, and preestablished setups, as well as optimized utilization of our best creative and technical staff for making more productions in a central location,” says Ms Wu, Production Manager at Momenta. “Using remote production is very cost-effective, we save costs and time and the work environment has really improved working at the IBC compared to an OB van.”

“The team I led participated in the production of the Beijing Olympics, the Rio Olympics and the World Badminton Championships, and the Sudirman Cup Mixed Team Competition,” says Mr. Wang, Director of Program Center of Xiamen Radio and Television Group, selected by the host broadcaster for the production team of badminton. “This time, I was invited to participate in the remote production of the badminton project in Wuhan 2019 Military World Games. Remote production is a relatively new concept in China. The actual application of remote production is a brand-new attempt. This is my view:

1. Overall, the entire operation flow, production standards and presentation effects of Remote Production is not different compared to an OB van. Communication between stadium and guidance room is clear and smooth, and the technical support at IBC is very powerful.

2. The advantage of the remote control in the guidance room in IBC is that the overall working environment is very good, and power, lighting, space, and noise interference are not a problem.

3. The production staff does not need to travel back and forth between the venues. The number of devices in the front section is small and the transition is easier.

4. The front signal is synthesized back to the rear, and everything becomes possible in the event of individual needs of the customer. In general, it has achieved the goal of“not far away, remote control, and remote viewing”. With the increasing number of large-scale domestic broadcasts, the market for remote production needs to continue to grow, and remote production should be the trend of signal production in the future. Through the actual experience of Wuhan 2019 Military World Games, we have full confidence in this.”

The origin of this badminton remote production is that the host broadcaster of the CISM Military World Games hopes to use this high-level event to promote the concept of remote production, and to measure whether the remote production application has use-value in the future in China, and let all local TV practitioners witness about their experiences and reflect on this topic.

Due to the growth of international games being held in China, unifying quality standards and reducing costs are becoming more important for Chinese production companies, and like other production companies around the world, they have an intention to try out remote production.

During this event, remote production has made the Chinese market fully interested and confident in this technology.