On February 4, the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing will officially open. Different from the previous broadcasting mode during major events, TV stations are required to transport satellite broadcasting vehicles in advance and build network special lines on site. This year’s Winter Olympic Games fully consider the anti epidemic factors. In order to show better viewing effect, more cutting-edge broadcasting technology is used in event broadcasting.
In an interview with the media, the CEO of the Olympic Broadcasting Service Company, ianis eksakes, introduced that the duration of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games will be about 1000 hours, the total production of broadcast content will reach 6000 hours, and the whole process will be broadcast in 4K Ultra HD format for the first time, and some important events will also be broadcast in 8K format. These content will go global through the cloud.
In 1964, the Olympic Games began satellite TV broadcasting, and this Olympic Broadcasting will no longer rely solely on satellite transmission, officially starting the journey of “Olympic Games on the cloud”. Technological progress changes, and the Olympic spirit continues. Between change and invariance, it is worth exploring who is supporting the “cloud Olympics” broadcasting technology?
New broadcasting technologies in the Winter Olympics
Han Qiang, Vice Minister of media operation Department of Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, previously revealed that in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, emerging broadcasting technology will further play an important role and is committed to creating a perfect viewing experience for the audience. The Winter Olympics will realize a number of broadcasting innovations and new media applications, mainly including three aspects: one is 8K Ultra HD, the other is cloud broadcasting, and the third is 8K VR free perspective.
It is understood that through the cloud broadcasting platform and based on the support of Cloud Architecture, the Winter Olympic Games will move some of the guidance switching functions of the traditional broadcasting car to the cloud. The signal will be directly transmitted to the cloud through the camera + 5g backpack, so that the producers can conduct guidance switching on the on-site signal in the cloud. After guidance switching, it will be transmitted back to various TV stations through 5g signal Media institutions or we media; Realize the parallel computing of various complex and ultra-high definition videos through cloud GPU; The original ecological client can accurately control the video synchronization and test, which is convenient to connect with a variety of control panels.
The reporter of daily economic news learned from Alibaba cloud that this cloud broadcasting platform has undergone four years of preparation. In 2018, the Olympic Broadcasting Service company cooperated with Alibaba cloud to develop the Olympic Broadcasting cloud OBS cloud. The platform was put into use for the first time at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, and was significantly upgraded at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, realizing the simultaneous broadcasting of high-definition TV live broadcast and network channel live broadcast on the cloud.
In addition, cloud broadcasting will bring richer viewing experience and provide high free perspective viewing effects similar to “bullet time”. With the help of cloud high concurrency and low delay characteristics, dozens of high-definition pictures will be transmitted in real time, and then millisecond synthesis and modeling will be carried out by intelligent algorithms to bring the film special effect pictures of ultra slow motion and panoramic viewing into the broadcasting of Winter Olympic events.
Alibaba cloud also revealed that this time, it also added an exclusive cloud network channel for broadcasting television stations in Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and other places to ensure the remote high-quality transmission of 4K / 8K content and reduce the delay by 30%.
“Olympic Games on cloud” is not an overnight achievement.
Alibaba cloud told reporters that in May 2017, the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee began the Olympic “cloud to cloud” movement. From 2017 to 2018, complete the master data center planning and provide services; From 2019 to 2020, complete the planning of standby data center and provide services.
At the same time, Alibaba cloud completed the cloud security design for the main data center in 2020, and GMS, OMS, ODS and other systems began to be deployed in the cloud in 2021 to realize cloud online operation. Based on Alibaba’s computing, storage and transmission capabilities, the Winter Olympic Games application system has realized unified portal, application integration and data integration, which has prepared a solid cloud infrastructure for the stable operation of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games information system.
4K / 8K technology provides Ultra HD visual experience
In addition to cloud broadcasting technology, 4K / 8K UHD technology is also a bright spot in the broadcasting technology of the Winter Olympic Games. According to Han Qiang, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will adopt 4K ultra-high definition signal production, fully realize UHD + KDR production in all projects, provide 8K public signal to the licensed broadcasters for the first time, and conduct 8K production or live broadcast of the opening and closing ceremonies, figure skating, short track speed skating, ski jumping, etc.
On January 24 this year, China Central Radio and television officially launched cctv-8k ultra-high definition channel, and simultaneously launched the “hundred cities and thousands of screens” public large screen project to build a new spatial media communication matrix through the integration of “TV channel + landmark large screen”. Behind this, it is also inseparable from the technical support of a science and innovation board listed company Hangzhou Arcvideo Technology Co.Ltd(688039) (688039. SH).
Hangzhou Arcvideo Technology Co.Ltd(688039) the relevant person in charge introduced to the reporter of the daily economic news that 8K is the ultra-high definition technology closest to the “reality of the human eye” so far, with a resolution of 16 times that of HD. At the same time, it has also made a full-dimensional improvement in quantization, frame rate and color gamut, which can give the audience the experience of “being in its environment”.
8K UHD live broadcasting involves a series of production and broadcasting processes such as collection and production, coding transmission, terminal presentation and so on.
The first is collection. Taking short track speed skating as an example, the speed of athletes can reach 15 to 18 meters per second, more than 50 kilometers per hour, and the speed of top athletes can reach 70 kilometers per hour. This requires a faster 8K Ultra HD camera with a speed of 90 km / h.
After the acquisition, the 8K ultra-high definition audio and video content will be toned, packaged, three-dimensional sound production, etc. For example, for projects on the ice, even set up a pickup microphone under the ice, making the ultra-high definition 8K broadcast content more delicate and realistic.
Then there is coded transmission. According to the person in charge of Hangzhou Arcvideo Technology Co.Ltd(688039) , 8K UHD video has a huge amount of data, 16 times that of HD, so it must be encoded and compressed. Using Hangzhou Arcvideo Technology Co.Ltd(688039) 8K avs3 encoder, the main station compresses the signal into 120MB code stream, which greatly reduces the pressure of transmission bandwidth.
Participate in the construction and distribution of “8039 {HDTV signals” through the “8039} integrated and 68K} distribution platform”. This is a capability platform for national public large screen, which provides personalized release of 8K UHD TV programs and decoding and viewing of large screen terminals, and can realize program stream scheduling and distribution, virtual channel broadcast switching, integrated distribution control and other services.
Finally, 8K UHD TV professional decoding terminal is adopted for urban large screens in many parts of the country to receive, decode, process and output signals.
At present, the “one hundred cities and one thousand screens” project has been started in more than ten provinces, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hubei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, Shandong, Fujian and Jiangxi. During the Beijing Winter Olympics, the cctv-8k UHD channel of the head office will also enter the network and households in Beijing and Guangdong Cable TV networks, and broadcast synchronously on hundreds of UHD screens across the country.
