An October NAB Show in Las Vegas feels about as awkward as forgetting to bring business cards.
Sitting at home watching the Olympics 400m Women’s hurdles final live on NBC’s 4K HDR channel, home audiences were captivated by the sweat and effort displayed on screen with immersive sound of the runners’ feet hitting the track. Viewers thousands of miles away could be excused for thinking they had the best seat in the Japan National Stadium. The live 4K HDR broadcast of NBC’s primetime show throughout the Games were an extrasensory experience unlike any previous Olympics telecasts.
Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) the host broadcaster for the Games was founded twenty years ago and has arguably gone through its hardest and most intense period of digital transformation for Tokyo 2020.
Aside from being the first Summer Olympics to be delayed a year due to a pandemic—shifting technical plans and causing strict work-arounds to comply with health restrictions—this year’s live coverage by NBCUniversal (NBCU) is noteworthy for its move to all-IP operations within the International Broadcast Center (IBC) onsite in Tokyo and for its use of the network’s extensive and disparately located resources to make the Games a success.
The launch of new low orbit satellites for global network coverage will have a significant impact on remote live streaming for broadcasters and webcasters. With the likes of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon’s Kuiper, or one of the other vendors such as Oneweb vying for vertical space, the outlook for remote communications has never looked more open for change.
NDI Version 5 is loaded with highly anticipated new features and unseen capabilities, because it was announced a month ago and hasn’t been released yet.
TV equipment manufacturers are doing what broadcasters do best: Creatively helping each other work through a difficult technical challenge.
With mature, cloud-based services now prevalent across the industry, helping to process and distribute content faster and more accurately than ever before, the long sought-after promise of producing content in the cloud—reducing cost and physical barriers—prompted broadcasters and production companies to experiment with new ways to make it a common reality.