EuroMedia covering Winter Military World Games, Paris Marathon

On behalf of its organiser, Euro Media covered the Winter Military World Games that took place recently in Annecy. For the opening ceremony a SNG truck belonging to S-TV (a wholly owned subsidiary of Euro Media) was used, featuring a Kahuna 1ME production switcher that delivered a full HD signal and was connected to five Ikegami cameras and two Panasonic handhelds. A Tricaster was used to capture the Short-Track skating event in the ice rink.

For coverage of all the other sports, teams of journalists and camera operators used Sony XDCAMs . Every evening around 6.30pm a summary of the daily events in French and in English was made available to TV channels that wished to air coverage. A central server assembled all the rushes (dailies) for post-production purposes. Four Mac workstations with Final Cut Pro and a workstation with Adobe After Effects for graphics applications were connected to the server. There was also a Panasonic editing system with P2 cards, whilst a GlobeCast mobile unit delivered the IP-based video content.

For the Paris Marathon, taking place on April 7, a S-TV truck will be used once again. The truck will be located at the starting line near the Champs Elysées to complement the set-up of the host broadcaster, France Télévisions. At the finish line a Euro Media mobile unit will handle all the wireless RF connection requirements. Four motorcycles (plus two spares) and a helicopter will transmit the images to a pressurised relay aircraft. The remixed content will then be sent via fiber optic cable to GlobeCast. A crew of no less than 45 technical staff from Euro Media will be working on the Paris Marathon in addition to France Télévisions’ considerable resources.

Euro Media works on an average of three to four marathons a year with similar RF requirements.