Bahrain Formula 1 Uplinking by Multi-Link Holland
3 Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in Sakhir, Bahrain
The Dutch satellite uplink company Multi-Link Holland is responsible for all Formula 1 EBU (European Broadcasting Union) transmissions. This company travels the world since 2004 for the Formula 1. You can regonice them easily by their green uplink dishes. Since 2004 they produce satellite uplinks at the Formula 1 for many broadcasters, RTL Netherlands, RTL+ Germany, ORF Austria, Sky Italia, Ferrari TV, ViaSat Sweden and more. They will give us an inside look through the whole season in what they must achieve on every location they land with their equipment, starting this weekend in Melbourne Australia and ending 25 november in Brazil. At this last race in Brazil we will do a special report about this company on the Interlagos circuit.
2012 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix:
Bahrain, Sakhir this time. One week after Shanghai Multi-Link Holland had to appear at full force in this country while one week before nobody was sure if they go to Bahrain. Bahrain, a country which gives the Formula 1 organisation for the second time in a row more negative attention than they wanted. The local people use the event to get attention for their cause. It is all about politics and power, and in this case it has nothing to do with this event..... except that Bahrain seems to pay a lot of money to the Formula 1organisation to have this race overthere.
The local mobile EBU & ZDF F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Sakhir, Bahrain
Lot of doubts and talks in front, even by some important people inside Formula 1 itselfs, besides that some gossips, some doubts, discussion by (online) newspapers and some by social media like Twitter and Facebook. But still, the races goes thru, The Formula 1 organisation takes care of the safety of all people involved in the event this weekend, and we think they do not want to take a risk in this.
The local mobile EBU & ZDF F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Sakhir, Bahrain
"This time we are on location even with 4 dishes and 4 people in Sakhir. The extra dish and manpower are needed for the german broadcaster ZDF." Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland tells us. "For this broadcaster we deliver besides an uplink also setup & maintain an edit set. An editor will edit a short version of the race while the race is happening. Also some short video's of the training and qualification are made on this set. The edit set runs on an Apple MacPro with Final Cut Pro. For ingesting the video footage a Telestream Pipeline is used to capture 4 channels at the same time if needed. After an edit is finalized the result is transported to a XDcam or Digibeta recorder for playout to satellite. The 4th dish we brought to Bahrain is a 1.9 mtr Advent Fly-Away set."
"This race will be transmitted by us on KU-band because from the Bahrain location we can reach European satellites. Also the chance to have rain here in minimal, so no need to transmit in C-Band overhere" The EBU worldfeed will be transmitted with our 3 3.7 mtr Gigasat, type FA370 dishes like we used in Melbourne and Malaysia so far this season." Gerben explains.
Gerben: "The safety so far? We cannot say to much about it yet, because nothing happened so far except an incident wit some Force India team members. There is a lot of police and even army on the streets. We did not see any protesters so far, no incidents and we like to keep it that way. So our fingers are crossed."
Gigasat FA370 dish pointing towards Europe for the EBU transmissions in Sakhir, Bahrain
More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next race Barcelona on the 13th of may, In Spain Multi-Link Holland will transmit with their uplink trucks in stead of the Fly-Aways.
mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
ZDF
Advent communications
Gigasat
Telestream Pipeline
Apple
Final Cut pro
Force India