Eurovision 2014: a display of light, projection, sound and pyrotechnics

En el B&W Hallerne Arena, los viejos astilleros en los que se desarrolló el festival, Eurovisión volvió a ser todo un escaparate tecnológico de luz, proyección, sonido y pirotecnia. En total, más de 700 personas entre cámaras, personal de producción y técnicos, han hecho posible uno de los mayores espectáculos audiovisuales del año con un presupuesto de 32 millones de euros.

The Eurovision Song Contest is, without a doubt, one of the biggest international television events of the year, with participants from all over the continent battling for the title of best European song.

Each edition is followed by an estimated 125 million viewers in 56 countries, including China for the first time this year. Organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Its signal contribution and distribution network, Eurovision, is one of the largest on the planet combining fiber and satellite and serves, among many other events, the festival itself.

Eurovision distributes the live broadcast via satellite with a footprint covering all of Europe and the Middle East. This means that the signal only needs to be sent once, and broadcasters across the continent can now transmit the signal live to their viewers.

But perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of the Eurovision Song Contest is the timing of the voting, since it involves linking shipping and return to all participating countries. Managing the capacity of your network to the millimeter is a challenge to ensure the timing of the popular vote.

At the core of its network, Eurovision uses Colt's high-capacity fiber optic connections capable of transmitting data at 10 Gbps, providing a reliable high-bandwidth “pipeline” to manage contributions from across Europe.

However, when there is no two-way interaction between commentators in different countries, latency becomes the big problem. The satellite adds a time delay, which can even reach two seconds, so Eurovision is forced to play at the same time with the latency over fiber to adjust the sending and return channels.

A great technological showcase

En cuanto al B&W Hallerne Arena, los viejos astilleros en los que se desarrolló el festival, Eurovisión volvió a ser todo un escaparate tecnológico de luz, proyección, sonido y pirotecnia.

Per Zachariassen was in charge of the festival's direction, with Claus Zie in the production design, with the broadcast being carried out by the Danish public radio and television DR.

As usual, Riedel deployed its network technology for audio, video, data and intercom, ensuring complete coverage throughout the venue.

EVS was in charge of serving the best moments of the gala for another year with its XT3 server systems and the IPDirector suite.

In the days leading up to the gala, Best Broadcast used ToolsOnAir's Just:Live software to send interviews and comments collected from the public gathered at the Copenhagen City Hall Plaza. Its integrated playout engine provides great quality and back-to-back playout of mixed codecs, aspect ratios and pixel sizes, especially when it comes to the broadcast of video clips. The system also allowed real-time graphics to be included from the mobile unit.

From a projection point of view, the festival organization once again opted for Barco technology again, with the HDQ-2K40 projector playing a prominent role, as happened in the last edition. A total of 16 HDQ units were combined with 16 HDX-W20 projectors to display the brightest images.

The Eurovision 2014 stage, presided over this year by a large 20x35 meter LED cube, consisted of 120 modules with a special LED surface for projection, which allowed the display of images or animations. MediaTec was the company in charge of integrating Barco's technology into this configuration, as it did last year.

The stage, designed by Claus Zier, was 20 meters high and 1,200 square meters, making it the largest ever built in the history of Denmark. To erect the structure, which was reminiscent of shipyards, 40 tons of steel were used, lined with 3,000 fluorescent lights, 730 LEDs, and an acrylic polycarbonate screen that allowed the projection of images in each of the performances. It is noteworthy that the floor was sensitive to touch so the images coming from the Barco projectors could interact with the artists as they walked across it.

En cuanto al audio, en el B&W Hallerne Arena, un sistema de PA de más de 11.400 kilos junto a 150 globos gigantes diseñados con 60.000 metros cuadrados de tela permitieron contar con un sonido cristalino en todo el recinto con un eco de apenas tres segundos.
For the gala, the DR used twenty-two cameras. In total, more than 700 people including cameras, production staff and technicians, among others, have made possible one of the largest audiovisual shows of the year with a budget of 32 million euros.

Gallery

(click on any photo to start the carousel - move left and right by clicking on the arrow)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OtuM3Zvkeo[/youtube]

Interview with Claus Zier, Production Designer of Eurovision 2014

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvbQeeCl_rM[/youtube]

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