BBC Post Production, part of BBC Resources Ltd, the commercial facilities arm of the BBC, supported multiplatform coverage for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympic Games. Staff from BBC Post Production as well as BBC Studios worked with BBC Sport and Siemens to create a multiplatform orientated facility, within the dedicated International Broadcast Centre (IBC).

300 hours of coverage was broadcast on BBC One and BBC Two, plus 2,450 hours on BBCi, as well as Online, Radio, News, Nations and Regions and CBBC. There was also live coverage on the BBC’s HD Channel. The time difference of 7 hours between the UK and China meant that live peak time coverage was heavily supplemented by interactive, broadband streamed media and a new focus on mobile content, all designed to improve the viewers’ access to the Olympics on demand.

For the first time, the entire event coverage of the Olympic Games was HD, enabling the core BBC Post Production operation to be HD and tapeless, although it handled some SD contributions upconverted from remote sites. There was parallel transmission in HD and SD and all live event coverage on the BBC’s HD Channel was carried in 5.1 surround sound.

The BBC’s space at the IBC comprised 1500m2 and included TV, Interactive (BBCi), Online, Radio, News and Nations and Regions. The facility included an Interactive control room, managing the output of a further seven streams of video being sent to London, where they were accessed by BBC Online to repurpose packages for web and mobile phones.

BBC Post Production designed the post production area, which housed 18 edit suites, two large server systems, plus connectivity to the Host broadcaster server and venues. Feeds from the Host EVS server and logging operation fed into the BBC’s EVS media server, which also supported fast turn around editing. The BBC’s EVS server was fully integrated with an Avid ISIS server on site, with file based transfers enabling packages to be edited and features to be made while feeds were coming in.

BBC Post Production provided centralised access to the media, which was fully managed on site. Basic metadata was ingested alongside content into the Host server and the BBC supplemented this, using EVS IP Director logging and media management software.

To keep costs down, it was a split site operation, with media storage and editing taking place in Beijing, whilst logging was carried out by a team in London, which operated live throughout the night to compensate for the time differences. Lower-quality but perfectly watchable versions of the video feeds were sent from China to London using IPTV technology and then all the logging metadata was synchronised between the two locations in real-time.

Charlie Cope, Lead Editor, BBC Post Production says: “The post production operation was more complex than ever before, as the Beijing Olympic Games were, in effect, the first ever 24/7 Olympics. We worked with teams across the BBC, to help make it possible for viewers to access live coverage, news updates and any magical moments they had missed, regardless of the time of day and where they were, through the BBC's TV, radio, online, mobile and iPlayerservices.“

For further information, please contact:

Georgie Hollett, Head of Communications, BBC Studios and Post Production
Tel: +44 (0)20 8624 9495
Mobile : +44 (0) 783484 5612
Email : georgie.hollett@bbc.co.uk

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