Skip to main content
Login Contact Us

Press Releases

Press Release

SVT and Net Insight Achieve Largest Remote IP Production with Grass Valley at 2019 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships

MONTREAL, February 11, 2019 — Sweden's national public broadcaster Sveriges Televison (SVT) and media solutions provider Net Insight have partnered with Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, to undertake remote IP production for the broadcast of the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships — being held in Åre, Sweden, from February 4-17, 2019. The production setup for the competition boasts the largest number of cameras deployed and the highest volume of remote signals — video, audio and data — transmitted to date from a live location to SVT's headquarters in Stockholm, over 600 km away.

Five years in the making, this significant undertaking has broken new ground in remote production. Eighty LDX 86 Series cameras from Grass Valley, located along the ski course in Åre are delivering uncompressed HD signals over two 100 Gbps fiber circuits from Telia, to three control rooms at SVT's Stockholm facility. Each circuit uses Nimbra transport solutions from Net Insight, including the recently launched terabit capacity platform, the Nimbra 1060. Grass Valley's unique DirectIP capability is central to this workflow, enabling the XCU base stations to be situated in the central equipment room in Stockholm, while the cameras are in the snowy hills of Åre. DirectIP hugely simplifies the interconnections that need to be made, allowing all the camera signals to connect straight into the XCU. This also enables the shaders to match the cameras, without any delay, with fewer people traveling and in a comfortable environment in Stockholm.

"This accomplishment demonstrates how far we've come in executing remote productions, especially looking back at our remote setup in 2012 for the London Summer Games," said Adde Grandberg, director of technology, CTO, at SVT. "To achieve this feat for the Alpine World Ski Championships, we knew from the beginning that we'd need more bandwidth, an adaptable workflow and very tight collaboration with Net Insight and Grass Valley — with no compromise to our ability to deliver high quality, synchronized images to our rights holders. The stunning pictures they deliver, with minimal latency, made Grass Valley's cameras the brand of choice for us and this project. These, coupled with its DirectIP capability, were instrumental in enabling us to create a robust and reliable workflow that can cope with the unique conditions of a live ski event. Together we've set a new benchmark for live remote production at a major sporting event."

The remote production workflow is set up to support a team of around 150 camera operators and technicians on location in Åre, with the rest of the production workflow and staff in Stockholm. The DirectIP configuration on the Grass Valley cameras enables highly efficient handling of uncompressed HD signal distribution. A Grass Valley Kayenne video production center switcher panel based in Åre gives the director access to a Grass Valley K-Frame X video production engine back at the studio. This sits alongside a multi-format Sirius 850 router that was purchased specifically for this event.

"When SVT first approached us about this project, the capacity to support so many cameras and reliably transport uncompressed HD signals over IP across such a large distance was unprecedented. We were working with Grass Valley at the time on this very undertaking, so this synchronicity significantly helped us bring this Alpine Ski undertaking to fruition for SVT," added Larissa Görner, strategic product manager at Net Insight. "SVT has been using our Nimbra platform as part of its network infrastructure for years, strengthened by its tight integration with Grass Valley cameras, which makes signal transport seamless. The image quality that Grass Valley cameras deliver is also second to none, so fans at home get an unmatched viewing experience that is both rich and immersive."

"Our customers are continuously raising the bar and rewriting the rules for what's possible with live production. Remote production is the next step change, opening up new ways of working by allowing a production team back at base to have all the resources they need to deliver high quality, captivating content," said Mark Hilton, vice president, live production at Grass Valley. "We are very proud to have partnered with SVT and Net Insight to help them push the boundaries of remote production and make history. This project illustrates how our DirectIP capability can make a big difference to how broadcasters and media service providers can approach large, complex production requirements."

###

For information about Grass Valley solutions and services, please visit grassvalley.com.

About Grass Valley

Grass Valley is focused on empowering customers to create, control and connect content wherever, however and whenever it is consumed. In this ever-changing media landscape, content remains the most important element. Many of our customers are faced with the need to create and support new workflows while continuing to operate their legacy workflows, simultaneously broadcasting through traditional channels, Over-The-Top platforms, and Video-On-Demand as well as to tablets, PCs, and mobile devices.

We provide the innovative tools and expertise to help customers improve the efficiency of their operations while telling better stories to attract and keep viewers. With Grass Valley's integrated solutions that enable flexibility, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, quality and scalability, broadcasters and content creators have what they need to sustain their businesses. Headquartered in Montreal, Grass Valley has been in the broadcast business for nearly 60 years and is part of St. Louis-based Belden Inc. For more information, visit www.belden.com.

Belden, Belden Sending All The Right Signals, and the Belden logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Belden Inc. or its affiliated companies in the United States and other jurisdictions. Grass Valley products listed above are trademarks or registered trademarks of Belden Inc., GVBB Holdings S.A.R.L. or Grass Valley Canada. Belden Inc., GVBB Holdings S.A.R.L., Grass Valley Canada and other parties may also have trademark rights in other terms used herein.

About Net Insight

Net Insight's vision is to enable a live and interactive media experience for anyone on earth. Our aim is to lead progress and enable a global media marketplace where live content can be exchanged and interaction among TV audiences can take place in real-time. We want to create the media experience of the future, centered on content.

Net Insight delivers products, software and services for effective, high-quality media transport, coupled with the effective management of resources, all, which creates an enhanced TV experience. Net Insight's offerings span across the entire media spectrum, starting from TV cameras and TV studios, right through to the TV consumers. Our solutions benefit network operators, and TV and production companies, by lowering total cost of ownership, improving their workflow efficiencies and providing them with the ability to capture new business opportunities.

More than 500 world-class customers run mission critical media services using Net Insight's solutions, covering more than 60 countries worldwide. Net Insight is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. For more information, please visit netinsight.net, Twitter: @NetInsight, twitter.com/NetInsight, LinkedIn: @Net Insight, www.linkedin.com/company/net-insight/

Contacts

 

Bénédicte Fauveau

Media Relations Specialist

benedicte.fauveau@grassvalley.com