Tata Comms-powered Formula One Management remote ops centre open for business

Formula One Management has opened the doors to its new state-of-the-art remote operations centre in Biggin Hill, South East London. Tata Communications’ enhanced connectivity enables the production team to have two multi-view video feeds for raw footage and a reverse data path, allowing them to operate a robotic trackside camera for illuminating race coverage.

The new deployment gives the team access to quality footage without the need to transport equipment and staff to each race, saving on costs and carbon footprint. By the end of the year, F1 and Tata Communications will also have migrated team radio operations, daily news edits and a remote producer’s position to Biggin Hill.

Tata Communications says that the set-up paves the way for further innovation in the way the sport is filmed, viewed and enjoyed.

John Morrison, chief technical officer, Formula One Management, comments: “Reliable connectivity and continuous support from the Tata Communications Service Team has made it possible to further our business goal of transferring media content from race locations worldwide.”

This major project is the latest result of a partnership which sees the Tata Communications team travel more than 62,000 miles with the tour each season, ensuring broadcasters and fans are always connected with the tour. Among its responsibilities, Tata Communications has taken on hosting duties for the Formula 1 website, managing 416,000,000 unique visitors to the website across the past two years. The company has increased the flexibility of the website, allowing it to easily scale to 100 times the normal traffic on race days, and introducing new website functions such as digital stills, video edits and data processing, all in real-time.

To view a case study on the remote operations centre installation, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HHyZyFLlj8.