NBC Olympics selects Avid-based workflow for London Games

NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, will rely upon a comprehensive Avid workflow in support of its coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, July 27-Aug. 12.

The London Games are the sixth consecutive Summer or Winter Games during which the companies have worked together.

At the heart of the NBC Olympics broadcast facility will be the Avid Interplay Media Asset Management (MAM) system. Working in conjunction with Sony and Harmonic, the Interplay MAM system will be used to create two simultaneous feeds for use in London and at NBC Olympics headquarters in New York City.

All metadata from video content, including all athletic content, will be ingested directly from Sony’s XDCAM Station into Avid’s Interplay MAM system. Once there, it will be replicated from London to New York using Harmonic’s MediaGrid and ProCast solutions.

In New York, media coming from the Interplay MAM will be available to more than 40 users to create highlights for Web distribution. London-based users and editors will get immediate access to Olympic footage, which can then be transferred from Interplay MAM to Avid ISIS shared storage for use in multi-user, simultaneous production across multiple networks and news feeds.

HD nonlinear edit suites in London’s International Broadcast Center (IBC) are outfitted with seven Avid Symphony and 26 Media Composer systems for high-end editing and 5.1 surround sound. The systems will be connected to Avid ISIS shared storage and Avid Interplay production asset management systems. Users will be able to browse the Interplay MAM proxy and transfer material faster than real-time for use in Symphony and Media Composer editing software applications. AirSpeed 5000 will be used in conjunction with ISIS 7000 to create turnkey production islands at the Olympic venues, including gymnastics, swimming, diving and track and field.