All of the camera and production facilities are located at the villa set while the edit and production facilities are located 3km away. This posed some unique challenges from a technical point of view and Timeline was tasked with provide broadcasting facilities to connect the sites before transmitting the finished edit live to ITV2.

Setting up a complete redundant and robust cross site link, Timeline chose Vislink encoders mixed by Vislink stream managers and transmits over four different RF links: 2 x 7GHz SAF links, a 70GHz Siklu and a 28GHz Ubiquity link These links also carry Internet back to the villa set, using NEP’s DANTE audio network and Teradek encoded monitoring feeds.  

On location, fast turnaround reality television is already challenging enough before the added complexity of not being able to position the production facility next to the filming location,” said Steve Kruger ITV Studio Technical Manager. “Timeline’s solution has opened up a whole range of new locations which would not have been possible in the past.”

On top of the cross-site links, Timeline partnered with Telenor to secure the satellite space before deploying a production and uplink truck (“RF1”) at the production site. The truck features dual flyaway dishes that support local and remote Riedel talkback facilities as well as the ingesting and playout of the final edit material over redundant satellites to the London Studios for live broadcast.

Finally Timeline provided ITV with a backup Internet connection and Comrex 4-wire coordination lines over a Ka Band satellite link.

With two large post-production facilities in London and a third in MediaCityUK, Timeline provides state-of-the-art facilities to major broadcasters, including BBC, BT Sport, BSkyB and ITV.