Beijing 2022: Grass Valley Serves Up IP, SDI Solutions for NBC Sports
NBC Sports has selected Grass Valley to provide a range of IP and SDI solutions for its production of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games from Beijing, China, February 2–20, 2022.
“The capabilities of Grass Valley’s suite of products, reflecting meaningful input from NBC Sports, has provided incredible flexibility to satisfy our Olympic production needs at the competition venues, International Broadcast Center in Beijing and at our headquarters in Stamford, Conn.,” says Todd Donovan, Vice-President Engineering Technology, NBC Olympics. “This flexibility has been especially critical due to the unusually short turnaround between the Summer Games in Tokyo and these Winter Games.”
NBCUniversal provides coverage of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games from Feb. 2-20, featuring a Winter Olympics-record 2,800+ hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. The Opening Ceremony was presented on Friday, Feb. 4, live in the morning and again in primetime on NBC and Peacock. Similar to recent Winter Games, NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage began the night before the Opening Ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 3. Coverage began on Wednesday, Feb. 2, on USA Network and Peacock. NBCUniversal is presenting its 18th Olympic Games, 12th consecutive overall, and sixth straight Winter Games, all the most by any U.S. media company.
NBC Sports has been using a suite of IP and SDI routers and Densité signal management products for the last seven Olympic and Paralympic Games. To manage the intercontinental scale and complexity of a production of this size, Grass Valley’s IP technology, including its Dynamic System Orchestrator, will power NBC Sports’ coverage of the Winter Games, including remote production from its International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn. NBC Sports maximizes the benefits of the IP technology through this unique configuration, control and monitoring solution specifically designed for the dynamic orchestration of broadcast media networks across SDI, hybrid or pure IP. NBC Sports’ solutions pair with the provider’s IP technology providing agile and responsive processing in the demanding environment of live sports production.
“Today’s media landscape is more dynamic and vibrant than ever, and viewers want experiences that are immersive and as good as being there,” says Sydney Lovely, CTO, Grass Valley. “With so many eyes watching, providing NBC Sports with best-in-class technology and solutions that enable them to meet continually evolving consumption demands are critical.”