2011: Year in Review – March

March saw some of the oldest regular sporting events in the world dabble in new formats, whether that was HD or 3D, while over a billion people were forecast to watch the Cricket World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan.

Inside Centro Televisivo Vaticano’s new HD truck

Italy: One of the most high-tech OB trucks in Europe rotates around La Santa Sede (The Holy See) and most of all The Pope, writes SVG Europe Italian Correspondent, Roberto Landini. Described by Padre Federico Lombardi, director of Centro Televisivo Vaticano in Rome as “a part of a wider communication strategy including also a new web portal,” the Padre also sees it as a potential vehicle – if you’ll pardon the pun – for widening the uptake of HD in Italy.

ESPN and Canal+ hit the slopes for Winter X-Games Europe

France: The second Winter X-Games Europe get underway on 16 March in the French resort of Tignes. Featuring ski and snowboard SuperPipe and SlopeStyle competitions, ESPN, in partnership with Canal+, is producing 12 live windows from the event for a total of 18 hours of coverage. All windows will air live on ESPN3.com, the broadcaster’s live sports broadband network, and live or delayed on ESPN channels worldwide and a long list of other networks.

Canal+ to broadcast le clasico français in 3D

France: Olympique de Marseille versus Paris Saint-Germain, le clasico français and the blockbuster game of first division French football, is to be broadcast this Sunday evening in stereo 3D by Canal+, writes SVG Europe French Correspondent, Fabrice Marinoni.

Boat Race to be broadcast in HD

UK: One of the longest lived sporting fixtures in the modern world, the 157th Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge, takes place on the River Thames in London this Saturday. Distributed to over 150 countries worldwide, this iconic aquatic event is to be broadcast in HD for the first time this year.

Wimbledon Championships prepare for 3D

This year’s 3D broadcasts from the finals of the 125th Wimbledon Tennis Championships are the latest instalment in a strong heritage of broadcast innovation that saw the Championships stage the UK’s first colour television broadcast, not to mention taking recent roles at the forefront of HD, super slo-mo and even rail-cam deployment. And with the initial round of production meetings now over, according to Mervyn Hall, broadcast manager at the AELTC, “We are now at the stage where the interesting stuff starts to happen.”

TV 2 Sporten goes close-up for training

Ask anyone what the prime issue facing the sports broadcasting industry is, and, nine times out of ten, people will cite training as their major concern. Where is the next generation coming from and how do you ensure a freelance pool has the skills you need it to have? A recent training programme undertaken by Norway’s TV 2 Sporten and its outside broadcast company, OB-Team, provides some answers.

The Cricket World Cup in numbers

India: With the subcontinent set to grind to a halt as a forecast audience of around one billion people watch today’s Cricket World Cup semi-final match between India and Pakistan in Mohali, Broadcast Solutions has been highlighting some of the astonishing behind the scenes numbers involved in producing coverage from the six-week tournament.