According to Stass Iordanov, senior IT manager, SMT, the
company has a team of 10 people onsite to support whatever needs NBC Olympics
may have, particularly for the primetime broadcast.
For the ninth straight Olympics, SMT is on hand within the
NBC Olympics operations at an IBC, once again providing real-time data and
timing information that helps enhance the production via on-air graphics,
scheduling, and searches for content in the media-asset–management (MAM)
system.
“At every Olympics, the amount of data is increasing, and
it’s always a challenge to deal with the volume of data and the latest
information,” says Iordanov. “NBC has a graphics crew that works nonstop, and
we work with them on things like virtual-graphics insertion in swimming,
cycling, and racing events.”
SMT is handling real-time delivery and seamless data and
graphics integration with all graphics-display systems for NBC Olympics
coverage of golf, beach volleyball, diving, artistic gymnastics, swimming, and
track and field events.
Golf is a natural fit for SMT, which is involved in the live
scoring of premier golf tournaments and events and has brought all its
expertise to the scoring and production at the golf venue in Rio.
In addition, for selected NBC Olympics broadcast venues,
SMT’s Point-in-Time software system integrates live results data to provide
commentators the ability to locate a specific “point in time” of a competition
in both live and recorded coverage. In addition, the software graphically shows
key events on a unified timeline so that NBC Olympics talent can quickly see,
for example, how a race began, when a lead changed, or where an athlete’s
performance improved.
The Point-in-Time software tool dramatically enhances NBC’s
storytelling capability, giving on-air talent the ability to highlight the
triumphs and defeats intrinsic in the extraordinary level of competition in the
2016 Summer Games.
“We are the source for any data that is available, making it
available to different sources like live on-air graphics or log-in information
for the MAM for searches and also information for scheduling,” says Iordanov.
“And, the way our software works, it can be operated from anywhere. We also
have multiple backups with diverse hardware and software streams, so we can
cover ourselves with respect to any possible failures.”