By Dan Daley
\nSVG Audio Editor
\nNBC Olympics has added five Calrec Omega with Bluefin
\nconsoles as part of its coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games in
\nBeijing. The 56-fader consoles will provide
\naudio mixing for a number of events across several venues. Two consoles will
\nprovide audio coverage for both the opening and closing ceremonies and the
\nathletics. Two other consoles will be used for gymnastics and trampoline, and a
\nfifth will be used for beach volleyball. “We will have some very large scale
\nvenues like ceremonies, track and field, and gymnastics,” says Bob Dixon, NBC
\nOlympics’ director of sound design and communications.
\nDixon
\nalso notes that this is the first Olympics broadcast to be produced totally in
\nhigh-definition with discrete 5.1 audio. “We are still in a period of
\ntransition in the
\nUnited
\nStates, so most of our audience will still
\nwatch the games on standard-definition television receivers with two channels
\nof audio,” he explains. “This means that everything we do in
\nChina must
\nserve both [modes of broadcast resolution].”
\nNBC Olympics will send six discrete channels of audio with
\nHD pictures to the
\nU.S.
\nfrom each venue, but will also send a simultaneous two-channel program downmix,
\nas well as a stereo downmix of the sound effects that are used in promos and
\npost-produced pieces.<\/p>\n
“We will also be paying the greatest attention to the
\ndown-mix of those channels for our stereo-listening audience,” he says.<\/p>\n
A Miranda Technologies XVP 811 cross converter card that
\nwill convert the HD signal to standard def will actually do the downmix. That
\ntwo-mix is sent to 30 Rock and the
\nBroadcast
\nCenter audio mixers can
\nconfidence-monitor that from a network feed from WNBC. Additionally, a number
\nof Dixon’s friends in the
\nU.S. will be
\nchecking the stereo mix and providing him with comments via email. “And we
\ncheck the AV Forum,” he says. “That’s the place to find the complaints.”<\/p>\n
The mixers have some control over the automated dowmix.
\nUsing metadata, the mix can respond to dynamic changes. “If the surround mix gets
\nhotter in the rear channels, we can [program] it to attenuate those in the
\nstereo mix so they don’t interfere with the announcers,”
\nDixon explains.
\nThe Omega with Bluefin console provides 160 channel
\nprocessing paths packaged as 48 stereo and 64 mono channels, allowing up to 24X
\nfull 5.1 surround channels. NBC Olympics mixers are able to address all six
\nchannels at once, or divide them up to provide independent control of each
\nchannel, with full EQ and dynamics on all channel groups and main outputs.
\nNBC, owns the exclusive U.S. media rights to the Olympic
\nGames through 2012, which includes Beijing in 2008, Vancouver in 2010, and
\nLondon in 2012, will broadcast a record-breaking 3,600 hours of coverage from
\nAugust 8 to 24, about three times as much as the 1,210 hours of Olympic
\ncoverage from Athens in 2004. That’s a lot of sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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