Avid Forms Cornerstone of Spanish Broadcaster RTVE’s Technical Deployment During the Games in Rio

Eladio Jareño, TVE’s managing director, confirmed this week that “our deployment in Rio will be significant, we will be in all channels, with over 5,000 hours of live broadcasting.” It’s a 273-strong team, with members from Rio and Spain, the international production of two sports (“appreciation and trust in our professionals”), and “digital and social media.” Games are three of this event’s features in which “RTVE aims to lead innovation.”

To that end, over the last couple of years, a team from Corporación Radio Televisión Española, led by David Valcarce, technical operations manager; Víctor Sánchez, technical manager; Jesús García Romero, assistance manager for mobile studio and unit support and service; Manuel González, MCR coordinator; and Juan Carlos Blanco, digital newsroom support unit manager, has been working hard to have everything ready by August 5 so as to bring the emotion of the XXXI Olympics Games Rio 2016 to the public radio and broadcasting organization’s audiences.

More than 100 RTVE professionals make up the team that will travel to Brazil to cover the Games. Specifically, 129 people will be deployed (six will return after the initial setup). RTVE’s three correspondents in Rio, as well as the technical commentators for some of the sports, will join the team. A large team made up of 141 people will take part in the operations from Spain.

As well as broadcasting and customizing the official signal for Spain, once again the Rio Games management has commissioned the international production of the track cycling and mountain bike events to RTVE. This represents a worldwide recognition of RTVE’s professional standing, also acknowledged by the IOC with the “Silver Rings” in London.

RTVE will have 400 m² of space at the IBC (International Broadcasting Center) allocated to signal recording and distribution technical media, digital newsroom, interviewing area, workspace and radio studio. At the IBC, located at the Parque Olímpico de Barra (west of Rio de Janeiro), Televisión Española has centralized an significant technical operations team made up of a master control, a direction control for both the set that TVE will deploy in the heart of Copacabana Beach as well as the unit to be deployed at the IBC itself, a continuity control for Radio Nacional and various news stations for TVE and RTVE.es, in addition to editing and voice-over services.

All the Rio-generated content will be stored on Avid Shared Storage with immediate access and on disk for deep archiving or documentary-collection purposes, to be sent back to Madrid with the complete material once the Games are over. All of the cataloging and indexing process will be carried out by means of an autometadata software developed by the Corporación itself, which will enable the use of metadata provided by OBS and those selected by TVE’s documentary makers. OBS will provide production metadata (Data Broadcast Feed, DBF), which will include information about athletes, times, baskets … which, in turn, TVE will use in its feed in Avid, adding to any metadata included by the Corporación’s documentary makers.

For the first time ever, RTVE will be handling the Olympic Games on the basis of a TV, radio and Internet joint production scheme with a newsroom that will enable remote working. Thus, the correspondents will be able to compile a news item in record time directly from the stadiums or venues.

One of the cornerstones in this technical development by Televisión Española is Avid MediaCentral | UX, a cloud-based solution that extends the audiovisual production environment to mobile and web-based devices. This platform enables professionals to easily create, edit, distribute and manage content — thus simplifying production.

Whether its purpose is to create packages, catalog material, or edit and submit videos for review and approval, it will save steps to the users thanks to its unified view, based on a standard navigator and from any location.

With Avid MediaCentral | UX, you can search, explore and transfer audiovisual contents between various workgroups, even if they are in different locations, and share links to provide direct access to the contents. In addition, it includes functions to create, view, export and delete text markers and video subclips or live signals, so as to facilitate searching for relevant content.

The system is so agile that the field correspondents will be able to create, explore and edit iNews stories and review MediaCentral video sequences with the only aid of their tablets or laptops — wherever or not they may be working.

RTVE.es will be there with a huge deployment that will include 4,500 hours of live programs and 6,000 hours of Video On Demand (VOD) in up to 19 live signals, so that users don’t miss on anything and have the possibility of selecting what they want to see — and when. More: video-meetings with the athletes, events that are not included in the TV programs and exclusive contents produced by RTVE Digital’s special correspondents.

For the first time, all signals will be available from any device: web, mobile telephones, tablets and via the Red Button in connected TV sets. Also new is the incorporation of a smartwatch app with the competition’s latest news and medals. Users will also be able to follow up on everything that happens in Rio via social media with a wide coverage and exclusive content.

Live broadcasting will be supplemented with reports, interviews, star events by the minute, stop-press information, videos for all the events and a dashboard complete with details, statistics and medals.

You can read the full article of RTVE’s Olympic coverage on www.panoramaaudiovisual.com.