Paris 2024: NBC Sports’ Ultra-Complex Transmission Scheme Connects Paris, Stamford, and Beyond (2024)

Production teams are backed by facilities across the country

NBC Olympics’ operations for the Paris 2024 games were a genuine transatlantic operation, with production teams throughout France and at NBC’s Stamford, CT, Broadcast Operations Center (BOC) tied together by a supercharged web of connectivity. Add NBCU’s stateside facilities at 30 Rock in NYC; EC Network Operations Center (NOC) in Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Dry Creek Hub in Denver; and Telemundo Center in Miami; and it’s clear how much transmission fire power NBC Sports had at its disposal for these Games.

“We have what we lovingly call the ‘subway map,’ illustrating all the different services and individual video paths connecting every site and venue in Paris to five of NBCU’s facilities stateside, and it’s bigger than ever,” said Ian Kuchta, VP, BOC and transmission operations, NBC Sports Group, during the Games. “We have a copy of the [subway map] from the Torino 2006 Games, and it looks miniature compared with this year’s [transmission scheme]. That shows just how much everything has grown and changed.”

Kuchta and Eric Poellot, senior manager, transmission engineering and operations, NBC Sports Group, led the Broadcast Operations Center (BOC) team in Stamford, which monitored hundreds of feeds while keeping an eye out for good 1080p HDR 50 video and 5.1.4-surround audio quality.

“The BOC is our central hub and brain for the entire building,” said Jefferson. “They are making sure we’re handshaking properly, checking all the LiveU crews and their delivery, and making sure sources are headed to the right place here in Stamford. It has grown a lot over the years, so the team has to be extremely vigilant. It’s up to them to make sure that everything is coming in correctly, because, if it doesn’t, everything downstream is affected, whether it’s Peaco*ck, our network distribution, or cable distribution. Everyone has to be laser focused here.”

Transatlantic Operation: JPEG XS and 100-Gbps Pipes Bring It All Together

NBC relied on four redundant 100-Gbps undersea fiber circuits provided by AT&T (along with two 10-Gbps fibers for extra redundancy), marking a major increase in contribution firepower compared with the five redundant 10-Gbps paths for Tokyo 2020.

A whopping 445 audio and video signals were sent from Paris. This included OBS host feeds, which were backhauled via JPEG XS. NBC deployed Media Links Xscend and MD8000 media-transport platforms for JPEG XS/ J2K contribution.

“This is the first time we’re [transmitting] all of our OBS DX feeds as JPEG XS,” said Kuchta. “It has been great because JPEG XS simplifies the timing of everything. We are less focused on having to figure out point-A-to-point-Z timing because everything comes back in the same time space from venues and from the IBC in Paris: 118-ms video router to video router.”

Said Darryl Jefferson, SVP, engineering and technology, NBC Sports and Olympic, “We also have full connectivity between [Stamford] and all of our primary sets: the café set at the Café de l’Homme, the set at the OBS TV tower, and our museum set. That connective tissue is very important and, although it comes with its own set of logistical and technology challenges, allows us to create all this amazing studio programming from Paris.

LiveU Goes Beyond the Playing Field With Family and Friends

NBC deployed 26 LiveU IP wireless backpacks as ENG cameras in Paris. The systems focused on family and friends in the crowd (often accompanied by a live mic) inside venues and followed athletes before and after competitions. In addition, NBC deployed the LiveU Matrix cloud-native IP video-distribution platform and LiveU Ingest automatic recording and story metadata tagging solution.

“LiveU was also able to deploy all of that in 1080p HDR,” said Kuchta, “which was a big lift for them and a must-have for us since we’re a wall-to-wall 1080p HDR operation here. We have such a large amount because we’re trying to cover stories on a wider level. That means we need to cover not only the venues but also the hotels, the buses, inside the athletes village, in the streets, at a café, and almost every historic location around Paris.”

Jefferson added, “In terms of our strategy here, we’re putting a lot of our effort into all the sports that we know we have viewership for. And we knew that the country was extremely hungry to see more behind the scenes. They want to see more of how these athletes get here. What happens to them before, what happens to them after? Those LiveU cameras provide more behind-the-scenes [content], more with the families. Getting those cameras and those microphones in the stands with family members is a new position for us.”

Opening Ceremony: A Monumental Transmission Challenge on Its Own

Perhaps the most complex of all was the Opening Ceremony coverage, which emphasized the fun and festivities happening aboard Team USA’s boat as it floated down the Seine. On the boat, NBC deployed a hardwired robotic camera (with low-powered RF connectivity), an RF Steadicam, and a handheld. EMG provided seven terrestrial RF receivers on the bank of the Seine to aid in transmission.

Also on the boat, a single LU 800 LiveU backpack with the roving cameras were on a dedicated private cellular network. Samsung and OBS deployed one camera per boat as part of its private 5G network dedicated to the Opening Ceremony (the network also provided backup for NBC’s LiveU units).

In addition, NBC took in live video from three cellphones (via LiveU’s LU-Smart mobile app) on the Team USA bus and in the athletes village, as well as from two LiveU handhelds at the Embankment as the athletes were getting on the boat.

“Above and beyond the 100+ cameras that OBS provided,” says Kuchta, “with the boat cameras, all the bridge cameras, all the host feeds that came from OBS, we ended up with 46 unilateral cameras to focus on Team USA. Obviously, the boat wasn’t going to turn around if things broke, so we had lots of spares out there.”

Despite the fact that NBC’s Opening Ceremony broadcast was produced in Paris out of a mobile unit, Stamford still brought back 56 feeds just for the Opening Ceremony to serve a variety of needs.

Beyond Stamford and Paris: EC NOC, Dry Creek Hub, Telemundo, 30 Rock

The transmission tissue extended well beyond Paris and Stamford. NBCU’s other facilities around the country played a vital role as well — especially for distribution.

NBCU’s master-control facility (home of CNBC) in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, handles distribution release for all NBC Sports cable networks (including Golf Channel, USA, and NBC RSNs) and Telemundo Deportes’ coverage. Its Dry Creek Hub in Denver is responsible for NBC Network’s release. In addition, subcontrol rooms (71, 72, 76, and 8H) at 30 Rockefeller Center help out with commercial control. On the streaming side, the DNOC (Digital Network Operations Center) in Stamford manages the onslaught of live streams distributed to Peaco*ck and other NBCU platforms.

The team at Englewood Cliffs (EC) takes in all the feeds from Stamford (as well as from Telemundo’s facility in Miami); integrates commercials, promos, and graphics; and distributes them to air through its automation system. Among the key responsibilities for EC is managing distribution for all of USA Network’s 4K HDR broadcasts with Dolby Atmos audio.

In addition to managing all NBC Sports cable channels, Englewood Cliffs is responsible for cable news channels CNBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo. Englewood Cliffs also provides NBC Network disaster recovery, which is managed in Dry Creek. Over the past few years, EC has distributed many single live events (SLEs) for Peaco*ck in coordination with the Stamford DNOC and BOC.