NBC chooses Avid to produce                  Winter Olympics in HD

With the opening ceremonies on February 10, NBC becomes the first U.S. network to broadcast the Olympic Winter Games in HD in primetime. For nearly a decade, the relationship between NBC and Avid has been one of innovation and success. In 2004, Avid systems anchored the production workflow behind an unprecedented 1,210 hours of coverage from Athens, Greece. In 2002, an estimated 187 million viewers tuned in to the Salt Lake City games. And this year, for the first time, the primetime NBC audience can see the games broadcast in HD.

"This is the fourth consecutive Olympic Games where we're using Avid solutions, and the third for graphics products that were formerly from Pinnacle but are now part of Avid."
Dave Mazza, Senior Vice President, Engineering | NBC Olympics

The world's largest HD graphics and production pipeline
Behind the scenes, nearly 100 Avid editing, storage, and audio systems are connected in a state-of-the-art digital video production environment. The challenge: produce more than 800 hours of high-quality HD media—more than 33 days of finished HD for a 17-day event. To add to the difficulty, all material has to be produced in SD at the same time—in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio. Key Avid products include:

  • Avid Unity ISIS media networks. Six Avid Unity ISIS networks anchor a storage infrastructure that can deliver 100 terabytes of real-time HD and SD media. The innovative, Ethernet-based Avid Unity ISIS system offers practically unlimited scalable capacity and intelligent, self-diagnosing technology—the ideal combination for mission-critical, Olympics-scale broadcast production.

  • Avid Media Composer Adrenaline systems. Three dozen HD editing systems edit and finish programming not just for NBC prime-time broadcasts, but for the family of NBC Universal channels as well: MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, USA Telemundo, and more. Open Timeline technology and integrated reformatting tools accelerate simultaneous HD and SD production.

  • Avid Deko 3000 HD real-time graphics systems. With the whole world watching, the NBC brand will be on full display with sixteen Deko3000/Hybrid systems delivering intelligent graphic templates; real-time 3D animations; and internal HD clips with moving key. Deko-signature Macros assist with up-to-the second production efficiencies such as NBC's channel guide that cycles program scheduling throughout the day.

  • Avid Thunder HD production servers. Engineered for fast-paced live production environments, nine Avid Thunder HD servers make their debuts at the Olympics to deliver broadcast-quality HD clips and stills backed up by built-in RAID storage. Airtight interoperability with the Avid DEKO graphics systems gives NBC a completely integrated broadcast graphics workflow.

  • Digidesign ICON audio system. With the opportunity to capture a prime-time HD audience, NBC knows that audio will play a crucial role. The Digidesign ICON system, the D-Control control surface, and Digidesign Pro Tools HD audio tools ensure that viewers will experience the sounds of the games—as well as the images—in full HD quality.

    • Avid DNxHD encoding powers a collaborative HD workflow
    With an event on the scale of the Winter Olympics, the sheer quantity of media pushes the limits of today's production technology. Add HD to the mix, and the challenge grows exponentially. A key differentiator of the Avid HD broadcast solution is Avid DNxHD encoding: 8- and 10-bit HD encoding that rivals the image quality of uncompressed HD, yet can be stored and shared on networks engineered for SD delivery.

    Because Avid DNxHD achieves high compression while maintaining the full raster of the original image, it is the ideal solution for collaborative HD projects that can't tolerate the quality losses associated with compression technologies that discard key image data. In fact, Avid DNxHD has been used for high-quality HD projection at industry and education events.

    A comprehensive portfolio of broadcast solutions
    Avid engineers solutions for broadcast organizations of every size: from networks to local stations to schools and universities. Learn more about the wide range of Avid solutions for broadcast, including Broadcast Production, Newsroom, On-air Graphics, and Play-to-air.

    "It's always a challenge to bring together a multitude of systems from several manufacturers, but Avid helps make the configuration seamless and cohesive."
    Dave Mazza