NBC Olympics will benefit from Grass Valley’s IP technology in Tokyo 2020

An important selection of Grass Valley solutions will be present at the Tokyo International Broadcast Center during the Olympic Games in the service of NBC Olympics.

Grass Valley has supplied a range of IP systems aimed at increasing efficiency in the NBC Olympics studios within the IBC in Tokyo. Grass Valley’s IP infrastructure will support the processing of live video and audio streams (both from the studios and remote event venues) for delivery to the network’s production control and editing rooms prior to live broadcasts.

NBC Olympics will deploy Grass Valley’s IP Media infrastructure at IBC Tokyo, leveraging the control of a Cisco Spine-and-Leaf switching topology via the GV Orbit NMOS router configuration and control system.

Open standards

The IP solution is compatible with SMPTE-2110, AMWA NMOS IS-04/05, SMPTE-2059, UHD and HDR, seeking to leverage the interoperability of industry standards. The system consists of more than 70 IQUCP modular gateways using 25GbE and 50GbE product versions; 170 Densitè+ XIP-3901, SDR/HDR, IS-04/IS-05 IP audio/video processing modules; and 16 MV-820-IP multiviewers.

System management is provided through the GV Orbit dynamic orchestration system, allowing production teams to take advantage of the benefits of IP using SDI workflows. As part of the IP infrastructure, Grass Valley has also provided MADI audio gateway products and the Audio Live multistream audio processing solution.

Total involvement

Todd Donovan, vice president of engineering technology at NBC Olympics, was clear that Grass Valley had to be their partner again for Tokyo 2020: “Given our long-term relationship and trust in Grass Valley and as we wanted to upgrade to a 2110 IP processing and routing core at the International Broadcast Center in Tokyo, it quickly became apparent that Grass Valley was the right partner for this important upgrade in our critical infrastructure due to their experience and product breadth and maturity. Grass Valley partnered with us on designing solutions enabling our sophisticated venue and IBC facility workflows as we work to present the largest Olympic Games presentation ever. They have been deeply invested at all levels of their organization to the continued success of NBC Olympics in Tokyo and beyond.”

On the other hand, Tim Shoulders, CEO of Grass Valley, comments, “We are proud to reinforce our close partnership with NBC Olympics cultivated over the past two decades. As well as delivering space and cost savings, the infrastructure will meet the needs for Tokyo and easily scale and adapt to support future Olympic Games events.”