The Ericsson solution is helping to deliver NBC Olympics' HD content across both contribution and distribution feeds to ensure the highest picture quality from the Olympic venues to millions of viewers in the United States. Ericsson is providing a range of products including MPEG-4 AVC encoders, professional receivers, multiplexers and satellite modulators as well as a team of support engineers in both London and New York. These engineers will assist in equipment/system set-up, maintenance and troubleshooting ensuring no great sporting moments are lost in transmission.
"The Games are the biggest sporting event in the world, and as a result viewers expect coverage to be of the highest quality," said Staffan Pehrson. "Live events like this create TV memories and I'm sure that the team at NBC Olympics will raise the bar again this summer. We are proud to provide solutions that allow NBC Olympics to bring U.S. viewers closer to the action and give them the best seat in the house."
David Mazza added: "With the athlete's moving so fast, TV coverage of sporting events is some of the most demanding content to compress and transmit. With millions of viewers throughout the United States watching these events, it is essential that we deliver the best quality pictures possible. Based on our long association with Ericsson, we can be sure its technology will deliver exactly what we need, from the opening ceremony through to the final events."
As the market leader in linear content acquisition, exchange and distribution, Ericsson knows about the challenges of delivering live sports event coverage to huge TV audiences. In addition to its market leading compression solutions, the company's skilled engineers have years of experience in delivering a highly valued support on the ground. Ericsson engineers have been present at all major Summer and Winter Games including Salt Lake City, Sydney, Torino, Athens, Vancouver and Beijing.
Ericsson encoding solutions were used by NBC Olympics for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2006 Winter Olympics from Torino, Italy.
Notes to editors:
Our multimedia content is available at the broadcast room: www.ericsson.com/broadcast_room
About NBC Olympics:
A division of the NBC Sports Group, NBC Olympics is responsible for producing, programming and promoting Olympic coverage across the networks of NBCUniversal. It is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in U.S. television history.
Having produced every Summer Olympics since Seoul in 1988 and every Winter Olympics since Salt Lake City in 2002, the networks of NBCUniversal are synonymous with the Games in the United States. In 2011, NBCUniversal acquired the U.S. media rights on all platforms to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and the 2020 Summer Olympics. At the conclusion of the 2020 Games, NBCUniversal will have presented 17 total Olympic Games and 11 consecutive, the most for a U.S. media company in both categories.
NBC has won an unprecedented 91 Emmy Awards for its Olympics coverage, as well as a prestigious Peabody Award for its presentation of the Beijing Opening Ceremony in 2008, which USA Today said was "the best overall Olympic experience ever provided by a U.S. network."
In addition to its unsurpassed heritage and award-winning production, NBCUniversal is known for aggregating large Olympic audiences, as nine of the top 11 most-watched U.S. television events of all time are Olympic Games presented across the networks of NBCUniversal. The Beijing Summer Olympics rank No. 1 with 215 million viewers.
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Source [reuters.com]
