LIVE FROM PYEONGCHANG > OBS
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CTO Sotiris Salamouris on the Challenge of the Winter Games, the Promise of Technology
n the midst of Week 1, two consecutive days of alpine events had to be rescheduled because of high winds. And, for the OBS team and the dozens of rightsholders onsite, the change in plans required juggling of schedules, personnel, and technical facilities. But, for Sotiris Salamouris, chief technology officer, OBS, preparing for such occurrences is in the Winter Games’ DNA. “While the Winter Games are smaller than the Summer, the possibility of cancellations and delays are much higher, and it can wreak havoc with the schedule,” he said during the PyeongChang Games. “The only way to deal with these sorts of changes is to have the resources available to be able to adapt and to use technology to help.” The challenge of handling cancellations and delays is not just about coming up with another production plan. It’s also about making sure that all the downstream processes, like the apps and other ways in which content is distributed, are instantly aware of the new reality. “Digital platforms have to be accurate as to when things start and stop,” Salamouris explained. “We use that information to drive not only the apps but encoders, switchers, and more, so, when we make changes, they have to propagate to all of those different applications.” What happened with the alpine events exemplified the powerful role that data and metadata feeds play within Olympic operations. And it is one of the reasons the Broadcast Data Feed (BDF) technical area in the IBC continues to expand in size and scope. Data powers everything, from graphics creation to archiving and then for broadcasters to more easily find the most relevant content for their needs both at the Games and in the years to come. At the center of the production efforts was an IBC that measured 36,000 sq. meters, and according to Salamouris, every square meter was snatched up by a rightsholder before the Games even began. The 2018 Olympics marked the second Games where OBS used a fully modular and prebuilt building for the IBC, ending the need to build one from scratch. Salamouris explained that it not only allowed OBS to amortize the costs of the building over a few Games but also met the growing need for organizations to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable. The IBC walls, floors, and other physical structures were shipped in about 300 sea containers, with an additional 80 for the core technical infrastructure that powers the IBC. One big change in the IBC was a new face on the landscape: Eurosport, which snagged the rights for all of Europe and transformed the way Olympics content was delivered across the continent. Previously, Eurovision was the main gatekeeper for Olympics broadcast rights across Europe, but it was primarily a member-based organization. Eurosport’s presence was different in that it was a single broadcaster with its own commercial objectives and also a large number of sublicensees, such as ARD/ZDF, the BBC, ORF, and RAI. Eurosport’s presence in the IBC, for example, included separate control rooms to enable countries like Sweden and Norway to deliver more nation-specific coverage. “It’s nice and exciting to have Eurosport here,” said Salamouris. “[It comes] with new ideas that are refreshing because they deal with more digitally driven broadcasting.” Each Olympics offers a hint of future production technologies, and this year’s big advance was the use of 5G cellular technology to deliver wireless video and audio from bobsleighs as they roared down the course at the Olympic Sliding Centre. OBS partnered with Korea Telecom to install small cameras that used 5G modems to uplink highquality video with very little latency. “The use of 5G is not evolutionary but revolutionary,” Salamouris
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SPORTSTECHJOURNAL / SPRING 2018
OBS’ Sotiris Salamouris and his team embraced new technologies, like 5G wireless, to improve the production and technical services at the core of the Olympics workflow. observed. “When you use 4G networks, there is inherent latency that you have to accept. But, with 5G, there is low latency, and it isn’t because of broadcasters but because of the Internet of Things and self-driving cars.” He saw the 5G efforts as an interesting harbinger of things to come and believes that 5G could be the backbone technology for wireless broadcast contribution. “5G capabilities are open, widespread, and offer huge bandwidth with little latency,” he said. “What we see in the future is 5G becoming the foundation for wide-area camera needs like marathons, cycling, or helicopters.” More 4K and 8K production was done in PyeongChang than at previous Games, with 8K coupled with HDR at the top of the quality chain. An 8K theater at the IBC with a 350-in. projection screen hammered home the potential of 8K as a way to build a new experience around theater experiences. The role OBS played in creating host feeds that meet the diverse needs of Olympic rightsholders put it at the center of the global debate about the role of 4K, 8K, and HDR in the future of broadcasting. “The world is divided and will remain so for a while. 4K is progressing in Asia, but that also means a base of consumer TV sets that are SDR-capable. So 4K with SDR is more interesting to them,” said Salamouris. “But then, in the rest of the world, 4K is a challenge, and, in those places, HDR is equally or more important. It is a challenge to satisfy all demands, but we are in intensive discussions to learn our rightsholders’ expectations and how to fulfill them.” The next Olympics is more than two years away, and, historically, the Summer Games is where OBS and the rightsholders take the next step with respect to new technologies, workflows, and innovations. The 2018 Games provided a glimpse of that future as the role of IP connectivity continues to expand, the use of data grows, and nextgeneration digital services (plus UHD and 8K) are more present. “Live content is king and will remain king,” said Salamouris. “But there is so much interesting content being consumed in a nonlive manner, and things like social media grow more and more in importance. And things like AR and VR will have more impact in non-live delivery, and cloud-based content will become very important. There are new things to come.” — KK