Broadcast Rental delivers Blackmagic solution to NOS for Olympics

NOS Netherlands will use the Blackmagic Design Videohub during its 2012 Olympics coverage.

Netherlands based Broadcast Rental has built a video routing solution around the Blackmagic Universal Videohub 288 for use by Dutch national broadcaster NOS at the 2012 London Games.

NOS will distribute key highlights and games footage from their media headquarters in the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) to other Dutch Olympic facilities at Holland House and Medal Plaza. The video routing solution will also be at the centre of operations in the IBC, a 24-hour media hub for around 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and journalist.

Controlled via PC touch screen monitors, the Universal Videohub will take in all signals from the Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) and will be distributed to the Holland House, Medal Plaza, and to storage at the IBC. The signal will be locked and ingested via an EVS XT & IPDirector workflow to an Avid Unity System before it is packaged up with Avid Media Composer. The final output is then routed back through the Universal Videohub before being distributed to the Netherlands broadcast network and other Olympic screening facilities.

“Blackmagic’s Universal Videohub, as a routing matrix, will sit at the heart of our Olympic operations. Every audio and video signal will go via this router,” says Geert Paul Slee, owner of Broadcast Rental. “We wanted to use the Universal Videohub in particular for this job because it is completely customizable, can be controlled wirelessly and fits easily into small spaces, which makes it a very cost effective solution when you are using a piece of kit for multiple customers.”

The Universal Videohub family consist of two fully customizable card based routers designed for the high end post production and broadcast industries. Universal Videohub is available in two models, a 72 x 72 and a 288 x 288 capacity size with the ability for customers to add a combination of SDI and optical fiber interface cards to fully customize their router. Universal Videohub 288 model also supports hot swap redundant cross-points and power supplies, so in the case of a fault, switch over is fully automatic for 24/7 reliability. Universal Videohub also includes powerful features such as SD, HD and 3 Gb/s auto switching, built in deck control ports and ethernet and serial router control with a wide range of Mac and PC software and hardware control panels.