ANO Sports Broadcasting prepares for Sochi

Russia: Russian production company ANO Sports Broadcasting has ordered four 16-camera OB vans and seven DSNG vehicles from German truck builder Broadcast Solutions as part of its preparations for Sochi 2014.

Details of the larger trucks – due for delivery in June 2012 – are still emerging, but Broadcast Solutions is happy to talk about the spec on the Mercedes Sprinter-based DSNG vehicles, which will be delivered to the client in July this year.

The DSNG units have 1.8m antennas and Ericsson Voyager II encoders, chosen partly for the quality of the on-site service in Russia. They also feature Sony XDCAM camcorders, Riedel comms, Tektronix monitoring, a Yamaha audio deck, and some decent winter-proofing for the Russian climate.

“ANO will use them mainly for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi 2014, but also for other sports- and show events as uplink vehicles. Also as news DSNG, but only if no other news DSNG is available on the market,” explains Broadcast Solutions’ Wladislaw Grabowski.

Seven vehicles at a time is a large order. Is that an indication of the possible growth of the Russian market? “It’s not easy to say this,” comments Grabowski. “This new company which is 100% owned by government is investing now in a very huge manner, but the rest of the broadcasting world in Russia is still at the same stage. As long as the TV world in Russia is manly in the hand of government, it will be dependent of political and economic situation of the state. And this is unpredictable.”