An Olympic-Sized Live Capture and HDR Processing Choice

The NBC Sports Group Olympics chose Telestream to provide media capture and automated workflow processing for its production at the XXXII Olympics Games, which remain on schedule from July 23 to August 8 in Tokyo.

NBC Olympics will use the Lightspeed Live Capture and Vantage media processing platform to perform a unique, mixed HDR / SDR workflow.

Lightspeed Live Capture systems will receive 1080p59.94 HDR signals from events and will create media in two different formats simultaneously.

Because 1080p59.94 HDR is recorded in XAVC Class 100 HDR (Hybrid Log Gamma or HLG) format, Telestream’s Vantage software running on multiple Lightspeed G6 servers will process media as it grows. SDR versions will be created in XDCAMHD 422 at 1080i59.94. HDR to SDR conversion will be performed via a new advanced Vantage color processing pipeline using search color processing (LUT) filters that convert HDR (HLG) to SDR (Rec. 709). In real time, while Lightspeed Live Capture is under recording, Vantage will check both HDR and SDR assets in Avid Interplay. The Vantage system provides HDR and SDR product frame editing capabilities, allowing Avid operators to edit live files on the fly while recording.

The HDR / SDR workflow takes advantage of Avid’s new ability to dynamically recharge at cross speeds. Avid operators focus on editing content based on 1080i59.94 SDR, which will be absorbed by the majority of viewers and then simply reconnect / adjust to HDR assets to complete edits to the product. 1080p59.94 HDR.

The complexity of producing Olympic coverage covers requires testing and monitoring solutions with the highest level of performance and reliability to ensure that high-quality content is delivered to viewers. To cope with this task, NBC Olympics will use the full range of Telestream’s Tektronix Video family of UHD / 4K Waveform monitors, supporting UHD / HDR formats and ITU-R BT.2020 wide color gamut (WCG), Master Sync and Master Clock Reference Generators and more to support its coverage.

The equipment, along with Telestream’s Sentry OTT monitoring solutions, will be used to monitor and test the quality of video and audio content used in NBC Olympics’ production, post-production, transmission and distribution at NBC Olympics facilities that maintain a record level of the content.