Broadcasting the World Cup

The International Broadcast Centre (IBC) is functional and ready to broadcast the 2010 World Cup.

Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has confirmed the ICT infrastructure is ready and functional for the world to witness the football event on African soil.

“The preparations for IBC are and will be sufficient. The construction was done in terms of very stringent requirements and these have been fully met,” says WWW Strategy MD Steven Ambrose.

The 2006 World Cup, in Germany, was broadcast to 214 countries on 376 channels, with a total coverage of 73 072 hours, according to Fifa. The global cumulative TV audience was 26.29 billion and Fifa expects a similar worldwide TV audience with records across Africa for the 2010 World Cup.

The governing body has appointed Host Broadcast Services (HBS) as the host broadcaster for the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

“HBS is in charge of organising the broadcast operations and infrastructure. Its role also includes producing and transmitting the international audio and video signal, as well as providing the necessary services and facilities for rights-holders and licensees to enable them to fulfil their production needs.

In this way, rights-holding broadcasters from all over the world can utilise the signals from each of the venues, add their own commentary and personalise the broadcast to be sent to their home countries, according to Fifa.

“Unilateral transmissions are produced by rights-holding broadcasters and are used to supplement the host broadcaster's coverage. The Fifa Broadcaster Servicing Team helps Fifa's TV division to service broadcasters before and during events, from accreditation right through to ticketing.”

There will be 204 countries broadcasting the World Cup and there are 179 media rights licensees (MRL) present in SA, according to Fifa. There are 13 000 MRL accreditations and 2 600 staff accreditations.

In terms of equipment, Fifa says there are 70x40ft containers of host broadcaster equipment and 200 pallets with cameras, tripods and lenses.

There are 2 750 hours of feeds produced by HBS, 18 distinct feeds produced by HBS for each match, 1 900km cabling for all 10 venues, 700 unilateral camera positions, 5 070 video circuits and 30 multilateral video feeds per venue with embedded audio produced.

A 30-camera multilateral camera plan has been put in place. An aerial coverage camera and a cable camera system will be provided for selected matches at certain venues.

“All 64 matches of the World Cup feature full production in HD. All multilateral feeds are available in HD format at the IBC. All these feeds are down-converted to SD, so MRLs can book either format, HD or SD, for the delivery of multilateral feeds into their unilateral spaces,” says Fifa.

“As part of the catalogue of services, HBS offers dedicated outside presentation studios at the IBC. The enclosed studios are elevated nine metres from the ground and give MRLs the chance to shoot footage of the Soccer City stadium with the city of Johannesburg in the background,” says Fifa.

HBS is also offering two unequipped bookable outside platforms for MRLs to perform stand-ups, with a view similar to the one offered by the dedicated studios.

There are 30 interview studios and 50 presentation studios.

“The master control room (MCR) is the central distribution point within the IBC for all incoming (venue and non-venue) and outgoing (telco and satellite farm) VandAs (uncompressed audio and video),” says Fifa.

The MCR also handles the management of the signal distribution to the IBC production centre. MCR staff will intervene if availability, quality or circuit-timing issues are encountered. The MCR will be fully staffed and operational 24/7, from 2 June to 12 July, according to the governing body.

The commentary switching centre (CSC) controls and patches all national and international commentary and coordination audio circuits.

“HBS is using the same audio matrix, which connects all venues to the IBC via uncompressed high-quality audio circuits and shortens set-up times between matches. The whole signal path is redundant via protected WAN connections and is fully under the control of HBS operational staff, explains Fifa.

The production control room (PCR) is the central distribution point and hub for all incoming and outgoing feeds and material between the MCR and IBC Production Centre (IPC). It also ensures all individual exchanges of programme material proceed smoothly inside the centre, says Fifa.

“The PCR deals with the daily requests and technical requirements from the multilateral production facilities within the IPC and all feeds are switched through the PCR production router.”

The PCR also controls and monitors the ingest and outgest of all multilateral feeds and material onto the Fifa MAX Server, as well as the incoming HBS file transfer, transcoding and ingestion of ENG material, according to Fifa. The PCR also hosts a dedicated server for mobile content, which handles the ingest and outgest of material for the mobile content production.

There are also two dedicated EBIF Show Live Production rooms where the various elements of the programme (titles, features, live match coverage, match highlights, action analysis, voice-over guide, graphics, etc) are mixed to produce the programme, adds Fifa.

The governing body says a 5.1 surround sound mix is produced to accompany all the matches. This mix is intended to complement the HD streams.

“There are two 5.1 surround sound production rooms at the IBC. The two rooms are used by the HBS audio production team to create a 5.1 surround mix. The pre-mixes and audio elements are transported from the multilateral production facility at the venue to the IBC via the Commentary Contribution Matrix. The final 5.1 surround sound mix is sent back to the venue after the coding process into a Dolby E Stream (20-bit) and the audio stream is embedded into the dedicated video feed.”

Related story:
IBC still in limbo