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The France Televisions Group, which holds the french broadcasting rights for the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, relies on the following production process for each edition : all the Olympic events are captured by the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), an agency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). OBS, considered as the host broadcaster, delivers all the international signals (video signal of the events, graphics and statistics in English, audio tracks without audio commentary and with the ambient sound of the Olympic sites), to the various foreign contractors installed on site or in their local production studios.
France Televisions, as the other countries holders of rights, adapts the international signals by adding its commentaries in French, reports, presentation sets, interviews of the athletes, etc. This year, as since the Beijing Summer Games in 2008, France Télévisions has opted for the technical choice of a remote production from Paris, augmented since the Tokyo 2021 Summer Games by an additional feature: the piloting of a virtual stage 8000 km away, an unprecedented technical and technological achievement.
In China, the main FTV technical system set up is located at the ZBC (Zhangjiakou Broadcast Center) in the city of Zhangjiakou, 200 km from Beijing and as close as possible to the alpine skiing events. The rest of the device is spread over three sites:
The installation phase at the ZBC
In practice, it is a question of ensuring the deployment of all the cables (audio, video, data-processing, electric, optical...); the installation of the electric distribution; the assembly of the virtual then real decoration; the installation of the lightings; the provision of the furniture as well as the recovery of all the audio and video connections ordered beforehand.
In order to adapt to the sanitary restrictions, the teams installed autonomous "interview modules" in the Olympic villages of the 3 sites (controlled from our ZBC nodal) to interview our athletes while preserving social distanciation.
This device was mainly installed in Zhangjiakou in the same premises as OBS. Likewise, controlled by channel 3 (one of the five channels at France Télévisions headquarters) in Paris, the set is installed at the ZBC to welcome the consultants and the French athletes at the end of their journey.
In line with the remote production facilities, 43 signals from the events produced by OBS are received in Paris, to which we add the 8 cameras on the set, the 7 cameras in the mixed zones and the 4 cameras in the interview positions, i.e. 62 video streams!
The EBU is in charge of transmitting 22 video feeds to Paris, 6 feeds to Beijing. The audio signals are transported via a MADI link while all the video media exchanges in file mode and the various office automation needs are transported via an Ethernet link.
The job of the production and the ZBC nodal is to transport these 62 signals in the 22 "pipes" to Paris according to a predetermined schedule. Indeed, the production teams do not need all 62 videos simultaneously to make the program.
The teams on site can therefore rely on an internally developed application called Portail JO which manages the switching between all these signals. Directly connected to the IOC's computer network to have all the latest information, the editorial team only has to select the events that will be broadcast on the air. This tool, accessible by all the technical and editorial actors, allows them to configure the arrivals in the control room, to prepare the recordings for archiving and the scripting for the sports department (indexing of the highlights by entering keywords, useful for framework of re-use of the images in other sports programs).
The broadcasting control room 3
In control room 3, the teams ensure the production and mixing of the program, the color correction of the images and the integration of the virtual set on the remote studio recording in Beijing. They also manage the set set up in ZBC, 8000km from Paris, which welcomes the various French consultants and athletes at the end of their journey. This is a major task that requires meticulous coordination with the staff in China.
To complete this system, an additional control room is located in control room 3. It allows for the production of a parallel program to the main control room to broadcast the best moments at the end of live events, but also to resume a live event while the main control room records the interview of a guest and the "JO Club" magazine broadcast at the end of the day.
The virtual bubble
It all started with the design phase over a year ago. A team of videographers in Nancy was in charge of designing the sphere and all the 3D objects, key elements of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games set.
A constant dialogue was established between the integration company Luxiris, the director Didier Fraisse, the director of photography, the truquists, the Real Time Graphics (RTG) cell and the videography teams who ensure the artistic coordination of the project. In order to adapt to the mountainous terrain of the Beijing region, an moodboard was used to establish the architecture, landscapes and composition of the sphere. Once the validation was obtained by the Sports Department, the construction phase started. This dynamic stage is declined in several temporalities (morning, noon, afternoon, late afternoon and night) and is punctuated with dynamic effects (animation of metal circles at the opening of the sphere, fireworks, appearance of virtual screens ...). To compensate for the small surface area of the studio, the "mixing" technology, which consists of moving back a real camera while virtually increasing the width of a shot, gives the viewer the illusion that the outside view of the bubble was taken by a drone.
Mixed zone or ZN = space where the athletes
ZBC = Zhangjiakou Broadcast Center
OBS & Olympics Broadcast Services = the production company of the International Olympic Committee)
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