Live From Rio 2016: Sky New Zealand Keeps Kiwis Front and Center

Sky New Zealand’s team of 26 production professionals is tapping into the same technical backbone it used for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year, ensuring that a production team of more than 200 back home has everything it needs to keep its Olympic fans happy and tied into the action. That technical backbone is provided by Outside Broadcasting, a Sky New Zealand subsidiary.

In Rio, Outside Broadcasting is providing a flypack with three Adobe Premier editing packages and a technical hub for handling incoming mixed-zone feeds and ENG content, as well as helping the production team back home get content that might not be available via the Olympic Broadcasting Service’s Multichannel Distribution Service (MDS).

“We’re able to access the DX feeds from OBS and not miss anything, like qualifications of our athletes and those with kiwi connections,” says Matt Quin, deputy head of sport production, Sky New Zealand.

Outside Broadcasting’s Matt Lamb oversees technical operations in Rio.

Matthew Lamb, who is on hand leading the Outside Broadcasting team, says three staffers from Outside Broadcasting are onsite for support of the system.

“Previous years, Sky has gone to third-party system integrators,” he notes, “but the cost was much higher.”

The Sky New Zealand team also has five ENG teams, each comprising a reporter and camera operator able to send content via LiveU. There are cabled positions in the mixed zones at four venues. The hot sports of choice are rugby sevens, athletics, rowing, canoeing, and cycling.

The MDS is received via satellite in Auckland while unilateral signals from the IBC facility are sent through Aldea.