RIO DE JANEIRO – Like in any career a workday of a journalist-director has its ‘everyday’ projects. But with some projects you only realize afterwards how special they really were. This reflection also occurs at this time of writing, when Broadcast Brazil asked me to put something down on paper about this recent documentary-project.

Often you only receive a few words; "... special transport ... a dredger through the jungle of Suriname on ... 350 tires ... say a sharp
challenge for both man and machine ... ". But as a director you instantly feel that with this meagre list of ingredients you have something special in the hands.

After the first contact with the Communication Department from the headquarters of Royal Boskalis Westminster, I was redirected to the regional manager in Paramaribo for further planning and details. He told me because of persistent and heavy rainfall in the last weeks, the transport has been postponed several times. Suriname deals with an unusual lot of water, where in a few weeks time more inches dropped then usually throughout the entire rain season.

But as experience shows ... delay is inherent in the maritime industry. Despite tight time schedules and a detailed scenario, the factor "weather" always comes unpredictable. And so the initial date for the transportation was shifted to three weeks later, hoping for some drier days. All in standby mode, meaning the calendar blocked, including my Belgian assisting cameraman who will fly straight too Paramaribo.

The Journey of a Dredge from Visuals Studio Brazil on Vimeo.

Tags: Corporate video, Surinam, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro

Formula 1 2012 São Paulo - Brazil Grand Prix for EBU, Special report

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

One year almost, one season Formula 1 and traveling the whole globe for the Multi-Link Holland Uplink team. That means we have some statistics for you in this last Formula 1 article of this year.

Gerben Vissers "Past season was a very long season. Every race we were on the spot with a least four people of Multi-Link Holland. it means we did travel, work, drink, eat, sit, run solve , talk, joke and laugh a lot. The thing we did most i will put it into some statistics".

Team Statistics:
• 34 Plane flights for each team member
• 40 Train travels for each team member
• Thousands of kilometers truck drives thru Europe
• 75 Rental cars (in which all are brought back in a... working condition)
• 134 Different Hotels
• 140 Hotels Breakfasts
• 8378,4 Jokes and laughs
• 1440 hours of work (at least) on location for each team member
• 181 Visits to different restaurants, snackbar's, grill houses
• 750 Hours of transmitting for each dish and HPA
• 321,5 Hamburgers (but we think it is more than that even)
.................... and about 20.160 Can's of cold Coca Cola Light (Diet Coke)

"It was a very nice season. Everything has gone very well this year. Also it was very challenging because in addition to the connections for the EBU we also produced the video / audio production for TV Globo Brazil and the editset + uplink for the German Broadcaster ZDF We are most of the time far from home and work long hours. But it's a nice group of people we work with and we visit very special locations. Besides we have to entertain ourselfs on the job to keep the team spirit" Gerben explained.

Gerben"I would like to say thanks to anyone I have worked together over the past year. Such as my colleagues of Multi-Link Holland, the staff of SKY, the employees of the EBU, the employees of the FOM, the staff of TV Globo Brazil , the guys from D.O.T. and many, many others. I also want the readers and creators of this blog thank you for the interest. I hope to see everyone back next season".

This was the last Formula 1 blog entry for this year, we hope we will do this next year again with the guys from this Dutch company. We can learn from them a lot, to se what they do to acchieve the result at the end of the season. We can also see that the english language is the basic used language on this event, so of you want to work there, start to study your english. Thanks Gerben Vissers, Bob Snieder, Marco Mohr , René van Hooff and Marco van Uffelen for their support on this blog last years. Hope to see you all next season for some nice tech stories again. Happy Holidays guys !!!
Listen every friday night Live to Grand Prix radio stream by Olav Mol .

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on, this time a Brazil Special at 19:00 tonight !!!!!!!

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
D.O.T.
Gigasat
Coco Cola Light
Olav Mol
Grand Prix Radio

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, São paulo, Brazil

Formula 1 2012 São Paulo - Brazil Grand Prix for EBU, Special report

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

Friday is always a long day for us. It starts at 8:00 in the morning with the first transmission. We arranged satellite capacity from 7:45 so we ensure that we are present at 6:45. This means we must leave very early from our hotel to prevent we are late. At 10:00 the first free practice.

We allow you to send to the WIF (Wide international feed), NIF (Narrow international feed) and Sky UK. Everything in HD1080i50. The difference between the WIF and NIF is that the graphics in the NIF fall within a 4:3 frame so that even the edges off him in 4:3 can be broadcast. This because in some countries they still transmit in 4 by 3... and also need to see the Graphics, timing info, standings etc etc

In addition to these channels, we ensure also that 2 muxed signals go by fiber to Europe. These both are put on satellite in Germany by another uplink.

In the afternoon we transmit the second free practice. We also do the tape feeds for different broadcasters at the Play Out Desk. In this configuration we WIF a 2 channel muxed mpeg 4 so we simultaneously help more customers ate the same time. We got a lot of happy clients this way.

At 20:00 we are finished and it is than time to cool down our HPA's and search a good restaurant in which is easy in São paulo. On Saturday morning the alarm wakes us up again at 6:15.... saturday is 1 free practice and qualifying... loooong day again.
Listen Tonight Live to Grand Prix radio stream by Olav Mol with a Brazil Special at 19:00 Brazil time.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on, this time a Brazil Special at 19:00 tonight !!!!!!!

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
Sky Sports
WIF
NIF
Olav Mol
Grand Prix Radio

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, São paulo, Brazil

Formula 1 2012 São Paulo - Brazil Grand Prix for EBU, Special report

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.

Thursday is always the day of the fine-tuning and tweaking, testing systems and the doing first Uplinks for EBU.

In Brazil we do besides the uplinks for EBU also the so called Play Outs. In the same cabin where we do the uplinks are also the play-out machines connected. The broadcasters that only have a camera ENG crew on location, enter our cabin with their footage to send it to their homeland. Normally this will be covered by the host broadcaster and we only transmit the signals but in Brazil we also coordinate all these Play Outs. We use 2x a HD XDCam deck and 1x P2 HD player. Customers with other formats run their own player or camera and give us the HD-SDI output. We put this signal this through fibers to our HD-SDI router and switch it to the correct encoders in our rack.

On Thursday we also test the uplinks. Almost every race in every country we have being we do this on Thursday 14:00 local time, a full test. Here do almost all broadcasters participate. It is a live as race test (like it would be on sunday) in which all systems tested. The tests went smoothly today.

Other broadcasters had some problems in the morning problems because something went wrong with the local voltage. We were happy here not bother because we work with an automatic switch where both local voltage and a generator. Behind this is a 80kVA UPS. This system, we only use in Brazil and in recent years also proved very necessary, every year there are problems in this. Last year the man in control of the power decided to stop the generators just after the race. The man thought the race is over so I can shut down and go home. He really did not realize that the pre and so called 'aftershows' often are the major programs related to advertising revenue.

Friday first Free Practice Transmissions, we are ready for it.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on, this time a Brazil Special:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
Sony professional XDCAM
EBU
Sky Sports

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, São paulo, Brazil

Formula 1 2012 São Paulo - Brazil Grand Prix for EBU, Special report

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.

Again a very very nice sunny day in São Paulo. This makes working more easy and more pleasant. It is still needed to prepare the 3 Gigasat dishes for Rain. Knowing from past years the weather can change suddenly over here. Protection against water of the Amplifiers is very important, they do not like it too much.

Meanwhile still waiting for the promised tables so the Play Out's can be installed. They will be there at 11:00 ... they said. Then  concentrate first on the other cabling towards FOM and TV Globo Brazil. FOM needs cables for audio, communications and WIF + NIF signals what need to be  transmitted. These last 2 go by a fibre. Globo just needs WIF + NIF, these go by copper.

Also the work on the dishes themselves continues. They are pointed precisely to the satellites, and there will be some testing with all 3. Following the instructions and info delivered by EBU and the satellite operator are crucial. Communications between them is only in the english language, does not matter where the satellites are from Japan, Brazil or Germany.

At 15:00 the so hard needed tables arrived, or better said....... EBU bought those themselfves at a shop in São Paulo. No time to waste! The Play Out's , XDCAM HD were installed rapidly and professionaly by a Brazilian rental company. All signals from the Play Out's go by fibre to the Rack where they will be encoded and transmitted.

All setup now, just some minor things to arrange on thursday. The last parts of the work on the dishes is done, the finalization with the black fabric around the frame underneath the dishes are performed, just to let make everything looking great and protect some more against rain water. This fabric solution is invented by Multi-Link Holland themselves.

At 22:00 all was done for today. Time for some food (did not have lunch even yet).

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on, this time a Brazil Special:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
Gigasat
D.O.T.
FOM (Formula 1 management)

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, São paulo, Brazil

Formula 1 2012 São Paulo - Brazil Grand Prix for EBU, Special report

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.

We arrived last tuesday at lunchtime in the impressive circuit at Interlagos, São Paulo. Here we meetup with the crew of Multi-Link Holland to follow them next coming days in transmitting this Grand Prix Live for the whole world from Brazil.

On the São Paulo TV-Compound Multi-Link Holland is situated in a nice box. The rack's with equipment already arrived, ready for building up and connecting the needed cables. In the same box also the 'play-outs' will be made for the diverse ENG teams. Problem number 1, there are not tables enough to give everything a place. Instead we start with building the racks, monitors and routing. Those tables will hopefully arrive tomorrow.

Another problem.... the satellite dishes are still not declared by the Brazilian customs yet. Because it is equipment to transmit they have to check them twice. The D.O.T. expect them to arrive at night from the Airport of Campinas. So..... let's than do also some cabling already to some other boxes and the place where the dishes will be placed. Problem 3, the guy with the drill seams to be very busy... we have to wait for that. Meanwhile we are finalizing the racks and cabling for it. Besides that.... the coffee machine is installed.

At about 19:00 we receive the message that the drill is broken, it seams there is only one on the circuit... so that will be tomorrow before they come back with a new one. We almost left the TV-Compound when the D.O.T. informed us that the dishes arrived. We stayed to build them up. Setting up these dishes is a very precise job. Step by step they are place and pointed in the right direction. It is obvious these guys are very experienced in this, take a look at the following photo's

Unpacking the 3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes that will be used for the EBU transmissions in Brazil


Getting the 3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes on their spot


Step 1: Prepare cabling and put needed equipment on it's place


Step 2: Parts of teh dishes are installed


Step 3: Heads on, and dishes installed on their frame and height.

At 23:00 all was setup, it is called a day by the crew. Wednesday will be cabling and pointing the dishes to the satellites.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
Gigasat
D.O.T.

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, São paulo, Brazil

Formula 1 2012 Austin, Texas - USA Grand Prix

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.

It is not very warm in Austin as techician Marco van Uffelen shows here

"This week we are in Austin, Texas. It is the first race at the new Circuit of the Americas. The first view of the track is great. Mainly the steep slope immediately after the starting grid. We are very pleased with this race in the U.S. , it is because we like to stay in this country very much". Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland explains.

The EBU office on the TV-Compund of the Circuit the Americas, Austin , Texas - USA

Gerben: "We are here for the EBU with 3 of our 3.7M dishes. We will transmit again in C-Band.  All the EBU feeds we transmit in NS3 16apsk and for their customer BSkyB we transmit in DVB-S2 8PSK. We do not transmit and deliver any service TV Globo Brazil because the local soccer competition in Brazil. The finals are also this weekend happening in Brazil. Soccer is still sport number 1 in Brazil. The competition was already decided last week, still no TV Globo Brazil on the track here".

Signals up from our3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU

Gerben: "The Power delivery is well arrangesd here. On the TV compound is both technical and non technical power available. The non technical building mains power is what just from the electricity network in the country / circuit. This is, therefore, the voltage of the land. In this case, 110V. The technical power is supplied by two synchronized generators. There is also a cold spare. These provide in this case 110V but through transformators get it converted to 230/400V just so our equipment can operate on the voltage that is used".

3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in the USA

Gerben:"After the race on Sunday will have to pack imediatly, the last race in which takes place in Brazil is already next week".
Next race and last reace of this season will take place in the Brazil, the 2012 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in São Paulo, Interlagos , on the 'Autodrome Jose Carlos Pace Circuit', next week on the 25th of november.... Broacast Brazil wil be there with some special reports!

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
Gigasat

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Austin, USA

2012 Formula 1 Atihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

"After the race in India all our equipment we used there was shipped to Abu Dhabi. Our 3 Gigasat dishes were already there because they are not allowed to be used in India, we shipped those before already". Gerben of Multi-Link Holland explains.

3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU & SKY transmissions in Abu Dhabi

Gerben "In Abu Dhabi we needed besides that, the video edit set for the German broadcaster ZDF and a replacement uplink dish for TV Globo Brazil. The 2.4 m Gigasat we previously used for TV Globo is now sent to the USA where we will use it for another job, bobsledding".

The multiviewer shows the 10180i50 format in Abu Dhabi

Gerben "Therefore, we are here with the following setup at Abu Dhabi: 2x Gigasat 3.7 C-Band airing on AsiaSat 5 for the World Feed for EBU , 1x Gigasat 3.7 KU-Band airing on Eutelsat 10E for EBU and an 1x 1.8M Advent Mantis Ku-band transmitting the Telstar12 for TV Globo Brazil".

The Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in Abu Dhabi

Gerben "Besides all this uplink stuff we also have to do the production set for TV Globo Brazil and the Final Cut Pro video edit set for German broadcaster ZDF, busy times and always something to solve".

The mobile EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Abu Dhabi

Gerben "Sunday to Monday night we will be packing very late because it is being an evening race. From here part of our equipment will be shipped to the USA for the GrandPrix of United States where we deliver our services to EBU. The equipment we do not need overthere will be shipped to our headquarter in the Netherlands".

Next race will take place in the USA, the 2012 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in Austin , on the 'Circuit The Americas', on the 18th of november.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us, Share us , Follow us.......... if you want ;)
mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
Gigasat
ZDF
Final Cut pro

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Abu Dhabi

Formula 1 2012 Indian Grand Prix

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.

This time the Multi-Link blogpost is setup by Marco van Uffelen and Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland. Gerben Vissers is performing some other uplink productions in Europe, besides that he is preparing the other overseas races for the Formula 1 like the Grand Prix of the USA & Brazil.

"We are in India for the EBU and TV Globo. Like in China it is not allowed that we use our own dishes and HPA's to transmit. Therefore, we
hired that part with some Indian companies". Gerben of Multi-Link Holland explains.

The full HD switchset setup for TV Globo Brazil from Multi-Link Holland in India

Gerben "For the EBU we receive the the signals from the host, we switch, encode, modulate and transmit. So actually we do the whole joint. For TV Globo Brazil we perform besides transmitting the entire live video production in HD".

The mobile EBU / SKY F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland at New Delhi in India

Gerben "It is the second time we are in India, and some things have being changed since last time. Last year we were in 'tents' instead of cabins. This year, it still tents but they are firmer and have wooden walls now".

A little part of the Encoder & Modulator rack for the EBU/SKY transmission in India

Gerben "The commentary positions are just as last year located in a separate building with not any view on the track in which is a strange situation for the TV and Radio commentators. You can at most watch your neighbor by a little window on de sides of the booth. This neighbors are also commenting. Why these windows are there we do not know. It seems that the 'real' commentary positions were built an another location on the circuit but are rented as skyboxes now".

Next race will take place in Abu Dhabi, the 2012 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Etihad Airways Grand Prix at Yas Island , on the Yas Marina circuit, the 4th of november.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us, Share us , Follow us.......... if you want ;)

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
Gigasat

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, India, New Delhi

Formula 1 2012 Korean Grand Prix - Entrance Circuit Korea International

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.

3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in Korea

Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland: "After the race in Japan, we packed our equipment and handed all over for transport to Korea to D.O.T. We flew ourselfs to Seoul on tuesday morning and drove from there by car to Mokpo. When we arrived at the circuit, all the our equipment was there waiting for us".

3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in Korea

"At Korea, we use our 3 , 3.7m Gigasat uplink dishes for EBU in C-Band on the AsiaSat-5 satellite. Besides that we use our 2.4m Gigasat dish for TV Globo Brazil in C-Band on the IS19 satellite. Furthermore, we provide this once again all the production facilities for TV Globo Brazil". Gerben explains.

The famous bridge, constructed over the circuit at the Circuit Korea International

Gerben: "In addition to the uplink for TV Globo Brazil we also take care of the Technical solution for the video and audio , the communication between Brazil, commentator, director, reporters, technicians and camera people".

The full HD switchset setup for TV Globo Brazil from Multi-Link Holland in Korea

Gerben: " Most of the communications, and also the padock camera is wireless. There's much wireless traffic in the air during a Formula 1 event. Besides the host broadcaster (FOM), an average of 8 other broadcasters present need all different frequencies for their intercom, camera teams and so on".

Host Broadcaster FOM (Formula 1 management)

"Also the Formula 1 teams have intercom, data and radio traffic and all kinds of other wireless equipment. In addition to the intercom lines, there are also countless wireless microphones, RF cameras and data transmitters. To put this right on track the FOM has a special frequency coordinator in cooperation with the local government to ensure that no one bothers each other". Gerben explains.

Next race will take place in India, the 2012 Formula 1 Airtel Indian Grandprix at the Buddh International Circuit on the 28th of october.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us, Share us , Follow us.......... if you want ;)

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
D.O.T.
FOM (Formula 1 management)
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
AsiaSat 5

Gigasat

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Mokpo, Korea

Formula 1 2012 Japanese Grandprix - TV Globo Brazil communicatios.

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.

Gigasat FA370 dish pointing towards Europe for the EBU transmissions in Japan

"This week we are present in Japan. The land where everything is just slightly smaller than what we are used to. So are the rooms and beds small but also the production cabin in which we work. Normally that approximately 3x6 meters but here it is about 2.2 x5m. So it's a little tighter as we are used to , we need to be close friends to work in this space :) ". Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland explains.

The mobile EBU / SKY F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland at Suzuka in Japan.

Gerben: "We are here in Japan at the Suzuka circuit for the EBU with our 3 huge green 3.7 mtr Gigasat uplink dishes. In Japan, it is very difficult to be able to transmit with our own equipment. Also it is officially not allowed to transmit in C-band . Yet in 2009 we managed to be the first company in the world to get a C-Band license in Japan. Something what even is impossible for Japanese companies. We are very proud of that. In 2011 we were the first company in Japan has been licensed to AsiaSat 5 to broadcast. We can use this license again this year".

The full HD switchset setup for TV Globo Brazil from Multi-Link Holland in Japan

Gerben: "Besides the uplinks for the EBU we also doing the live production for TV Globo Brazil. The setup is just like the previous races. A total video production set with an HD wireless camera".

The full HD switchset setup for TV Globo Brazil from Multi-Link Holland in Japan

Gerben: "This time, we have solid team supplemented by the experienced uplink and video techician Johan Harmeijer from SNG Europe. We have a lot of extra jobs in Europe for DTM for example. He will also work with us during the race next week in Korea".

Uplink & video technician Johan Harmeijer makes our Gigasat dishes look small

Next race will take place in Korea, the Korean GranPrix 2012 on the 14th of october.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us, Share us , Follow us.......... if you want ;)

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Globo TV Brazil
AsiaSat 5

Gigasat
DTM

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Suzuka, Japan

Daniel Guimaraes is graphics designer for TV stations in the Brazilian market since 2004

The graphics have always been huge part of audiovisual production in Brazil. Since the beginning of TV Tupi in 1950, where the cartoon of a friendly little Indian boy called programmes until today with computer graphics leaving viewers more awestruck than ever.

TV Tupi

The Brazilians have a special fascination with regard to the "graphic identities" of video productions. Much is due to the Austrian designer Hans Donner, known nationally and internationally as the "Wizard of Graphics". Donner, art director of the giant TV Globo has revolutionized the world of graphics on TV in the late '70s and early '80s, with its unique style and 3D animation. A revolution for the time.

If asked, Brazilians remember every single intro sequence of their famous telenovelas (soap operas). Among the audience, the motion graphics are still a very big success.

TV Globo Brazil

Nowadays with the advent of digital media, internet, cable channels (cable TV only began in Brazil in the late '80s), this market is experiencing a very large expansion. At the same time, trends change. The geometric shapes of metal flying in space - Donner's mark in his job for TV Globo in 80s - were outdated. Today, Brazilian TV graphics are getting more and more similar to those produced internationally.

Over the past 10 years audiovisual production in Brazil is seeking to fit within the international standard. A movement that follows the evolution of the country - increasingly inserted in the international market

SporTV

Channels like SporTV (pay-TV) and TV Alterosa (affiliate of SBT network in Minas Gerais) sought in major international animation graphics companies solutions to their demands, in their very case the companies are US-based Troika and Renderon, respectivelly.

TV Alterosa

Rio de Janeiro-based animation producer Beeld is perhaps the example that Brazilians have understood this market movement. Beeld produces excellent pieces for various cable channels and also gives a more current and fresh style to Globo, indeed in their famous soap operas opening sequences.

Beeld - Rio de Janeiro

Globo continues to spearhead this in Brazil, but the myriad of channels that are available today in the Brazilian television, along with the internet/webcast booming marketing opens up great opportunities.

The federal law 12.485 from 2011 is now requiring cable channels to have part of their programming produced in Brazil, This is already creating demands for this market even more, especially for freelancers willing to make its mark in the market of the South American giant. And with the World Cup 2014 and the Olympics 2016 on the horizon, this demand grows further, it is up to designers worldwide know how to discover Brazil animations and computer graphics market.

VFX playlist:

Tags: Animation, 3d, vfx, Brazil, Broadcast

Formula 1 Singtel Singapore Grandprix TV compound.

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.

Gigasat FA370 dish pointing towards Europe for the EBU transmissions in Singapore

Formula 1 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix
Location technician Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland: "The Formula 1 circus is back in Singapore and Multi-Link landed there also with dishes, HPA's, encoders up-convertors and modulators. After lasts race at Monza - Italy, we went back rapidly to our homebase in The Netherlands and have all our needed equipment packed. Wednesday after that race all of that was picked up and transported by D.O.T. to Singapore".

A little part of the Encoder & Modulator rack for the EBU/SKY transmission in Singapore

Gerben:"Last tuesday we arrived ourselfs In Singapore. We have to build our 3x 1x 3.7M and 2.4M Gigasat's dishes on the TV Compound. As the Singapore race being a night race we remain in a more European rhythm. This is also the best option for us because of the very hot humid weather over here. These are really extreme weather conditions for us".

3 x Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU & SKY transmissions in Singapore

"We are present here for the EBU, TV Globo and the German broadcaster ZDF. For TV Globo Brazil we do the production and also the satellite uplink this time. The 4 different clients with their different setups and wishes makes us always busy with communicating in several languages, adding, solving and chancing things for them to have a smooth live transmission for all". Gerben of Multi-Link explains.

Trackside, all ready for the nightrace in Singapore .. lights on !!!

Gerben: "For the ZDF we bring an editing-set with us. The editing set is based on Apple Final Cut Pro connected to a Telestream 4 channel Pipeline. This means we can ingest 4 seperate SDI channels and edit at the same time. All done on one Apple Macbook pro. The connection with Germany goes over fiber to europe in this case where we pick-up this signal and uplink it from there directly to broadcaster ZDF".

Telestream 4 channel Pipeline ingest for German broadcaster ZDF in Singapore

Next race will take place in Japan , the Japanse GranPrix 2012 at Suzuka on the 7th of october.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us, Share us , Follow us.......... if you want ;)

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Singapore

Race day, the circuit is filled with the 'Tifosi' for supporting Ferrari at Monza, Italy.

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.

Formula 1 Gran Premio Santander D'Italia 2012
"Monza.... this is the last race with our both trailers and the black uplink-van for this season" , Gerben of Multi-Link Holland is telling us.

Tv Compound Monza, Italy. Uplink & production trucks with in front the Black Uplink-Van.

Gerben "At Monza the race-circuit lies in a big park and so does the TV compound. There are many trees on and around the TV compound. It is always difficult with SNG's (uplink trucks) where to position. Last year we stood with our green trailer near the trees and we were able to point our dishes just over them, but as these same trees have grown past 12 months it was this time too critical to achieve a good signal on satellite. But luckily we could get another place for our trailers".

The high trees in the park around the TV compound at Monza, Italy.

Gerben "We are here in Monza with the same setup as at the last race in Belgium, Spa Francorchamp. So the green triple dish trailer for EBU, the white trailer for TV Globo Brazil and the black uplink-van for the German broadcaster ZDF. Very international and always a mix of languages, English, German, Portuguese and Dutch."

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland at Monza, Italy.

Gerben "Sunday evening the trailers drive already to the Netherlands home base where we will select the needed equipment for overseas and packing for the rest of the F1 season in which is also Fly-away. Next wednesday at the end of the day the stuff picked up and shipped to Singapore already, so we have not any moment to sit down.

Next race will take place in Singapore , the Sintel Singapore GranPrix 2012 on the 23th of september".

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us, Share us , Follow us.......... if you want ;)

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, monza, italy

ABTA2012 has finally arrived(!) and we were fortunate enough to catch our EVP Corporate Strategy, Hamdane Noureddine, for a few questions about piracy and security just before he goes on stage and participates in the ABTA2012 panel “Combating piracy: strategies and approaches” (Aug. 2nd, 11:00 am).

Noureddine, can you walk us through the history of Pay TV piracy? How has it changed over the years?

The history of Pay TV piracy coincides with the history of Pay TV and goes back to the 1980s. At the time, it was more of a hobby / non-lucrative type of activity. Some engineers would handcraft pirate devices for themselves and their relatives. Today, Pay TV piracy has become a sophisticated global industry involving hackers, high-tech laboratories, manufacturers and distributors from across the globe. Internet has also played a major role in facilitating the worldwide distribution of pirate devices.

How do you think piracy will evolve? And how will Viaccess-Orca meet these challenges?

Since content security solutions have also evolved, and conditional access smart cards have become very hard to hack, there are now new ways to pirate pay TV signal without the need to crack a smart card. Among them is what we call “Control-word sharing” which consists of using a counterfeit set top box especially designed for CW-sharing services.
Viaccess-Orca has developed an innovative solution to tackle these new piracy technics. On the one hand, we have implemented chipset pairing which makes CW-sharing inefficient for those customers who use controlled set top box i.e., do not support grey market non Viaccess-Orca certified STBs. On the other hand, our latest generation of smart cards includes detect & sanction mechanisms that enable us to detect when an illegal smart card is being used in CW-sharing and our customer (the content service provider) can decide what sanction to take in such a case.

In your opinion, is Cardless technology more or less efficient against piracy than card based solution?

This is a very good question as there is a lot of confusion surrounding this topic. This confusion is caused by various players who are trying to convince others that they can achieve the same level of smart card security with cardless solutions.
The truth is that a robust content security requires a combination of hardware, software and networks security elements. Even the so-called “cardless solutions” rely on hardware elements that are built-in the set top box chipset or around it.
For this reason, I prefer to call such a solution an “embedded CAS” as they tackle the issue of embedding hardware elements in the set-top box. While we can discuss the respective operational flexibilities of smart card based and embedded CAS, its clear that each has its own pros and cons.
But when it comes to the level of security, smart cards provide, and will continue to provide, the ultimate level of hardware security.

What are the new challenges brought about by multi screen?

With multi-screen, content service providers have to make their content available not only on the devices they control (managed devices like set top boxes) but also on consumer electronic devices that they do not control (unmanaged devices).
This raises technological challenges especially when it comes to protecting content on devices that are insecure by design such as Android devices.
It is vital that the level of security on all such devices be optimum as the principle of the weakest link applies and pirate attacks would focus on the less secure implementation.
Providing a robust content security on all types of devices, requires very special skills and expertise that only few players actually have.

How much damage can piracy cause the TV industry?

The cost of piracy to the TV industry worldwide is estimated at billions of Dollars and this figure continues to increase over time.
The industry needs to continue investing in content security. Despite the economic pressure we still advise content service providers to resist the temptation to go for low cost solutions and select content security vendors that are committed to supporting them in the long-run; This support is implemented not only by providing the most advanced technology but also by assisting in all fronts of the battle against piracy including legislation (help with lobbying for legislation that would enable the prosecution of pirate organizations, etc.), education of Police and Custom Authorities (to help them identify counterfeited pirate devices), investigation and tracking of piracy networks across the globe, monitoring of content sharing over the Internet.
All these are part of our 360° anti-piracy strategy. A strategy which our customers are very satisfied with, given the peace of mind they enjoy by having a partner like us which is fully committed to protecting and enhancing the value of their content services.

For more information about Viaccess-Orca’s solutions , products and this article, click the links below.
We thank Morad Stern and Viaccess-Orca in sharing this post with Broadcast Brazil.

mentioned:
Hamdane Noureddine

Viaccess-Orca

ABTA2012
Original article

Tags: PayTV, Piracy

Tv Compound, Uplink & production trucks at Francorchamp, Belgium.

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.

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland at Francorchamp, Belgium.

2012 Formula 1 Shell Belgium Grand prix
Gerben of Multi-Link : "We are back on the circuit of Spa Francorchamps. It is the race closest to Netherlands and feels a bit like a home race for us. We have had 4 weeks no Formula 1, the summer break ' this has given us a little bit rest but we have being not totaly free. The german DTM and the dutch GT Masters continued and was also be broadcasted by MultiLink Holland".

The EBU , SKY F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland at Francorchamp, Belgium.

"Furthermore, we have build a portable set for TV Globo Brasil. We had to arrange this in front because between the Monza race and the Singapore race there will be no time to do this. So we made good use of our summer break. We added all needed equipment in flight cases and fully wired them so when we need a Fly Away we can setup TV Globo Brasil very quickly. For this race we just put these flightcases in the white production trailer for use at this Belgium Grand Prix". Gerben explained.

The new Flightcase for TV Globo Brasil for the next overseas Grand Prixes.

Gerben: "We are at the F1 of Belgium with the green triple dish trailer for EBU, the white production trailer will be used for for TV GLOBO Brasil and the black edit / uplink van for the German broadcaster ZDF. The tricky thing of Belgium is that it is often very cold and it rains a lot. This is for us no drama because of our large dishes and powerful HPA's, we have no problems with the rain for sure. But for us ourselfs it is a little less nice because we are more accustomed to the sunny places in the Formula 1 season ;)".

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland at Francorchamp, Belgium.

"Sunday after the race we will drive directly to Monza, the Grand Prix of Monza will be next weekend already!"
Next race Grand Prix of Monza on the 9th of september.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us if you want ;)

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
DTM
Globo TV Brazil

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Francorchamp, Belgium

The full HD switchset setup for Globo TV Brazil from Multi-Link Holland, Hungary

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.

Formula 1 Eni Magyar Nagydíj 2012 by Multi-Link Holland
"After last weekends race in Germany we went to Budapest, Hungary with the white production trailer and the Triple Dish Trailer. We are transmiting this weekend for EBU and TV Globo Brasil." Gerben of Multi-Link Holland explains.

Tv Compound hungaroring, Uplink & production trucks exactly lined up by laser.

Gerben: "At the Formula 1 there are some special rules. Some rules of the Formula 1 organisation are concerning Broadcast vehicles. Not any broadcast truck, van or trailer can have any company names on them, the same rule counts for the company cloths we wear. We just have our logo without company name on or cloths and the dishes. And of course the organisation has somebody to look after that. The trailers and vans are even lined up by laser, so they are parked on an exact virtual line. Another rule is that you appear on the TV compound with a very clean vehicle. The trucks and trailers of the Formula 1 teams are so clean, that even the rubber tires shine in the sun. So before entering the TV-compound we have to clean them. Mostly there is no place to wash them or even the availability of clean streaming water for cleaning the vehicles, so..... we bring our own. The Triple Dish Trailer has a tank with more than a 1000 liters of clean dutch water. In combination with our own generator and high pressure cleaners we did achieve to bring our own car wash place on the spot".

The famous Triple Dish and white production trailer lined up, Budapest, Hungary.

Gerben: The TV compound is located behind 'Grand Stand' in which are open at the backside. All sound of the circuit is projected towards the TV compound. You cannot image the amount of sound available at the Free sessions, Qualifying and Races of GP3, GP2 and Formula 1. Both our trailers are build on the base of cooling trailers, our walls are because of that heavily isolated, inside we almost here nothing of what is going on outside."

This is our sound & temperature isolation shown in the door of the Triple Dish Trailer.

"The internet dish we normaly use for German broadcaster ZDF is used for a special occasion. We placed it on a nearby F1 campingside for Formula 1 club Huissen. This group of crazy dutch fan's made a deal with us, we arrange some internet for them so they can listen to their favorite sports commentator Olav Mol. As return they will cook for us a special dutch food called 'Boerenkool met worst' We have a very nice deal :)" Gerben is telling us.

Our internet antenna setup for the Formula 1 club Huissen Netherlands on the f1 Camping

At Broadcast Brazil we received a question about the onboard camera's we see on TV Globo, one of our readers asked why these camera's do not look very good on his HD television. It looked like they were on a different framerate.
Gerben:" The onboard camera's used on all GP3, GP2 and Formula 1 cars are SD (Standard Definition). These signals are up-converted to HD (High definition) before transmission. This happens at the FOM it selfs and also at TV Globo on location. That's why it looks different than the HD transmission signals from the main international feed".

Commentator box TV Globo Brazil, Hungaroring in Budapest, Hungary.

Gerben: "After this weekend we are 4 weeks free of Formula 1 races. We will try to relax a little if possible after the first half of this season. but we also have to prepare the Fly-away sets for the overseas races in the second half of the season. Singapore , Japan, Korea are not the most easy places to reach. India will be exciting again, USA is a complete new race and location. Abu Dhabi and Brazil we know very well. But first to European race before we go overseas, starting after the break at Francorchamp and than Italy".

Next race Grand Prix of Belgium at the famous Francorchamp circuit on the 2nd september, always special there.

Every Grand Prix a new Mix on:

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us if you want ;)

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
FOM (Formula 1 management)
Formula 1 club Huissen
Globo TV Brazil

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, Budapest, hungary

The EBU , SKY F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Hockenheim, Germany

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.

Formula 1 Grosser preis Santander von Deutschland 2012 by Multi-Link Holland

"We setup in Hockenheim, Germany for it seams a wet weekend with lots of rain. The TV Compound is close to the highway, people who pass by at the 'Autobahn 6' can see our trucks even" Gerben of Multi-Link explains.

The Tripple Dish trailer and other uplinks seen from the Autobahn 6 at Hockenheim, Germany

Gerben: "This Grandprix we are present with the same recources for the same clients as last race at Silverstone in England. So the we had to bring the triple dish uplink trailer for EBU feeds, the black edit / uplink bus for german broadcaster ZDF and white production trailer for TV Globo Brazil".

The new white production trailer on the TV Compound from Multi-Link Holland at Hockenheim.

Gerben: "Between the 2 races we have done some modifications to the white production trailer. We have ensured that at various points audio and video cabling is set so that the video-edit can be made in several places in the trailer if needed".

New Audio/Video patchbays in the white production trailer at Hockenheim, Germany

Gerben: "Furthermore we will have some very long working days this weekend for sure. For Formula 1 we will transmit 3 free training sessions, the qualification and the race itselfs. In addition we also transmit the GP2, GP3 and Porsche cup, these too are multiple qualifiers, free practice sessions and the races. Besides we feed quite a lot unilaterals for TV stations with a camera crew on location. Therefore we are often first on the TV compound and finalize as last ones to leave".

Communications for GloboTV in the white production trailer of Multi-Link Holland at Hockenheim, Germany

Gerben: "After this race the 2 trailers go straight to Hungary for the race next weekend already. The German broadcaster ZDF will not there because there are already enough news that will comes from the Olympic Games at that time".
Next race Grand Prix of Hungary in Budapest on the Hungaroring on the 29th of july.

Camera permit sticker ENG team TV Globo - Brazil

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here.
Like us if you want ;)

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Gigasat
Globo TV Brazil
ZDF

Tags: Uplink, Broadcast, formula1, hockenheim, germany

The Globo TV production room in the new trailer' from Multi-Link Holland at Silverstone, UK

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 Santander Britisch Grand Prix by Multi-Link Hollland

Multi-Link Holland arrived in a rainy and very wet Silverstone in England with the Tripple Dish trailer, the black little edit/uplink-van and a brand new white production trailer.

"This last trailer is something from happening the last week" Gerben of Multi-Link explains. "After Valencia TV Globo Brasil experienced a lack of working space in the Uplink Truck on the Formula 1 TV compound they used overthere. TV Globo extended their production at Formula 1 this year and seeked now for more space at the England Grand Prix. Our production trailer was a solution for them".

The new white production trailer on the TV Compound from Multi-Link Holland at Silverstone, UK

Gerben: "When we came back from Valencia this production trailer was totaly empty. The trailer is a former standard cooling trailer with a loading-lift on the back side, Multi-Link bought this trailer some years ago for future plans. We used it mostly for material transports. We managed to change it within 5 days into a modern HD TV production trailer for Globo TV Brazil".

The loading-lift is still there, airco's are placed on the front side.

Gerben: "We split the trailer in 3 different parts. A production crew relax area in the front side, the main Tv production for camera switching and audio in the center, in the backside we have space for technic + stock of diverse equipment and other needed stuff. The main switching room is the same setup we used for TV Globo Brazil we used for example in Canada for them".

Gerben: "Within these 5 days we also added a very strong Airco system, this is setup in a double system as we used in our Tripple Dish Trailer. With this setup we we always have cool air, even if one of the units would stop working".

The Globo TV production room in the new trailer' from Multi-Link Holland at Silverstone, UK

Gerben: "In the near future also this trailer will having 1 or several uplink dishes on top, this setup like we use on the Tripple Dish Trailer is a method what seamed very flexible and cost effective for our clients. We want to thank Multi-Tech and Bas-Airco in helping us last week in achieve to get the trailer for GloboTV ready in time".

The Globo TV edit room in the new trailer' from Multi-Link Holland at Silverstone, UK

Gerben: "Silverstone means in most cases.... Rain. A lot of rain as we could see last days with the Practice sessions and saturdays Qualification. The heavy clouds and pouring rain is not hurting us. We use very big dishes and strong HPA's with never will giving us any signal loss, we have always space to power-up the signal if needed".

The ZDF production edit/uplink-van setting up by operator Marco (Uf) van Uffelen at Silverstone, UK

Gerben: "The Tripple Dish trailer will transmit for EBU, our little van has it's edit and uplink and internet connection ready for the German broadcaster ZDF. Our new white production trailer will feed it's transmission to the HOL51 uplink truck of another dutch uplink company United Broadcast Facilities (UBF). An international production again this weekend with a nice professional international crew from all over the globe".

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland and UBF HOL51 dish at Silverstone, UK

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next race Grand Prix of germany on the Hockenheim ring on the 22th of july.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Gigasat
Globo TV Brazil
ZDF
BAS airco
Multi-Tech

United Broadcast facilities

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, Silverstone, england

Mineirinho, Belo Horizonte - one hour before the live broadcast starts.

A well known figure at this event is Brian Froustet, a very experienced A2 (Senior audio assistant)
We had the chance to ask him a couple of questions about his work at the UFC events.

Brian Froustet, A2.

BB: So Brian, please tell us what is your function, and what does it include
Brian: "I’m an A2 or Audio assist. Basically I take care of everything not dealing with the actual mixing of audio of the show. My main position with UFC is the Booth A2 which entails setting up the Booth Announce position for Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan for them to announce the fights and do there on camera stand ups. I also set up all the comms, courtesy listen headsets and put the efx around and under the Octagon. But as you know my job is not limited to that. As an audio team we all jump in to take care of whatever needs to be done audio wise for the show whether it be running or making cables, building other interview positions and just helping each other out however we can".

Mineirinho, Belo Horizonte - setting up.

BB: How many years are you working on the UFC
Brian: "I have been working with the UFC since 2008"

BB: What is for you the best part of the UFC events
Brian: "There are many great things about working all the UFC events... Besides traveling all over the states for shows I have been lucky enough to have also gone to Australia, Japan and Brazil for events. I have also been lucky to meet some pretty amazing people because of traveling all over. But I think the best part for me is being able to do all that with the audio guys I travel with, MJ Law, Ryan Mitchel and Robert Massey. I couldn't imagine doing this job without them, they are the best at what they do and are the best friends a guy could ask for. Oh, and I get to see some pretty amazing fights, hahaha".

BB: What is the difference Brazil and other countries at UFC events
Brian: "I think the biggest difference between doing UFC events in Brazil and in other countries is definitely the language barrier. It seems that most of the other places we go English is used quite a bit more than it is in Brazil. Obviously we all try and learn some basic Portuguese to communicate, but as I'm sure you know its not an easy language to learn.
As for the equipment and venues, there is really no difference with some of the places we work in the States. Some buildings are easy to get stuff in while others are just a big pain in the ass".

Your DreamTeam for any UFC event.

BB: What are the good and bad parts of Brazil as event host
Brian: "Brazil is an amazing place to hold UFC events. The energy of the crowd is like no other place I have been with them. Its awesome to hear and see people screaming and cheering for six hours straight. I really can't think of anything bad other than its tough for me to eat at times since I don't eat meat...The Brazilians really love their meat".

BB: Does the latin culture influence the way of working
Brian: "The culture itself doesn't really influence our way of working as I am sure you guys can tell. We obviously like to have fun but when its time to work we get the job done. We do whatever we can to respect the ways of the people or country we are in".

Mineirinho, Belo Horizonte - one hour before the live broadcast starts.

BB: Any specific technical difficulties this last UFC, and if so, these were due to what
Brian: "The only real technical difficulty we had for this past UFC in Belo Horizonte was one that, as small as it may be, caused quite a few issues and that was power for all the equipment. It wasn't  the power itself but actually the plugs on the power cords. It was all 220v, but all of our equipment was Australian power and the power strips we had were Brazilian. Once that issue was solved we were good to go".

BB:Do you see a rise in the amount of (english speaking)  Brazilian Broadcast Technicians needed during the UFC in Brazil. And in which specific areas.
Brian: "I do. I know there are plans to do more UFC events in Brazil and also with the World Cup And Olympics coming to Brazil, I think it would be a huge help. I'm not saying that the people coming to Brazil shouldn't  learn some Portuguese, but even with that the translation does not always covey the way you would like. That being said I also don't want to take work from the locals but the reason they bring all of us is the ease of communication and we know the show and what needs to be done.
Now Obviously we have had the pleasure of having Niek van Esch, René Schaap and Danny Littlwin on the shows which is a huge help so Audio is not really an issue.
The biggest issue usually seems to be with the Camera operators. They don't send them all from the States and we do use locals. At times we have to set up a translator in the truck to tell them what the Director wants. Most of them speak some English but like I said before, what the Director say/wants and how they, the camera operators, understand, that is not always the same".

BB: Any good advice for the Brazilians in this area
Brian: "I would say to just ask questions. I know when I see new equipment or someone doing things differently than I would, I need to know about it. We all are always willing to show someone something new, it is how we all learned and how we are still learning.

All under control.

So we hope this is, besides, fun to read, also a good help and insight information about foreign broadcast events held in Brazil and what the future may hold".

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
And see our former blogpost about the UFC event held in Rio de Janeiro.

mentioned:
UFC
Danny Littwin

Tags: Broadcast, Sports, UFC, Belo Horizone, Brazil

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland in Valencia

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 Grand Prix of Europe by Multi-Link Holland

After the busy Montreal race, the European Grand Prix tis next. Valencia is the city of location. High temperatures , a kind of street circuit at the harbour site of the city and next to the beach.

"We are in Valencia with out Tripple Dish Trailer in which we will use for the EBU Worldfeed . The BBC is because of the shared Formula 1 TV broadcast rights not in Valencia." Gerben of Multi-LINK Holland explains.

The EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Valencia

We bring also one of our Uplink vans, it will be used for the German broadcaster ZDF. On this van we have a 1.8 meter antenne for the live transmissions plus a 1.2 meter dish for the internet connection by satellite. Inside we also installed the videoedit set based on Final Cut Pro and a Telestream Pipeline for ingesting up to 4 SDI feeds.
And also in Valencia we deliver some equipment and service for TV Globo Brazil like the video mixer and a fibre solution.

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' and ZDF van from Multi-Link Holland in Valencia

Because of the very high temperatures we have to cool our equipment heavily. Our Triple Dish trailer and the ZDF van have had installed several Airco-Units. If one should break, we even than have a backup in cool air :)

The EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Valencia

Valencia is a crowded place when the Formula 1 event takes place, because our hotel is pretty nearby our TV compound we did bring our dutch bikes to Valencia. It is the fastest way to our hotel and also back to the circuit. It is even cheaper than any other type of transport, call it the dutch way :)

Bob Snieders, Dutch way: Biking from the Tv Compound to the Hotel

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next race Grand Prix of Silverstone, England on the 8th of july.

Bob , Gerben, Marco (Uf) & René , Formula 1 team from Multi-Link Holland

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Gigasat
Globo TV Brazil
ZDF
Telestream Pipeline
Apple
Final Cut pro

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, valencia

Commentator-box for TV Globo Brazil in Montreal, Canada

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.

Formula 1 Grand Prix Du Canada 2012 by Multi-Link Holland

3 huge Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in Montreal, Canada

"We are at a very nice location and will get a very nice race also. Last year it was the best race of the season so it is promising. The sphere in Montreal is always very good. The circuit is located on an island, our TV Compound is located inside a beautiful park, really nice!! Of course it has it's backside.... a lot of trees. We have to take care of our dish positions carefully when we place them." Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link explains.

Gerben: "We did bring our 3 usual 2.7 m Gigasat dishes for the EBU Worldfeed but also we brought our american 3.7 KU uplink truck. This truck is owned by Multi-Link and is always located in the USA. We use this truck this time for Globo TV Brazil."

The EBU , SKY F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Montreal, Canada

Besides the uplinks Multi-Link Holland arrange a full HD switch-set for TV Globo Brazil. We insert 2 international feeds and also add a wireless camera and the switched feed also goes to the commentator position with the TV Globo commentator. Next to that we have a XDcam deck for playout and we had to insert 10 onboard camera signals to the video-switcher.

The full HD switchset setup for TV Globo Brazil from Multi-Link Holland in Montreal, Canada

Gerben: " We get all signals by fibre. This is needed because the TV Globo commentators position is 900 meters away from the TV compound. The whole program is produced in HD and will be transmitted by our Adtec encoders in Mpeg4 4.2.0. "

Multi-Link holland USA uplink-truck for the transmissions of Globo TV Brazil

"Next to the video part we also arrange the audio signals + communication with the camera crew who walk around for interviews in the pit area, the both commentators, the director and also with TV Globo (MCR) in Brazil".

TV Globo SporTV Brazil ENG Pits team for the transmissions of Globo TV Brazil

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next race Grand Prix of Europe in Valencia, Spain on the 24th of june.

Multi-Link holland USA uplink-truck for the transmissions of TV Globo Brazil

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Advent communications
Gigasat
Adtec
Globo TV Brazil

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, canada

The EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Monaco

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.
Formula 1 Grand Prix De Monaco 2012 by Multi Link

A late blog entry from the Monaco Grand Prix, and we at BroadcastBrazil have to say sorry for this.
Because of a more busy location job in Monaco we did not get all information in time, so Canada must be in time :)

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland in Monaco

Monaco, something different again...... very different.
"On this location we use our Tripple Dish trailer again.
Some things are very different like the Free Training on thursday in which is normaly on friday, so we have to be ready one day earlier than at other Grand Prixes.

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland in Monaco

Than we have a very small TV compound on location near the Monaco Harbour to park our trailer.
All is based in this little city at the French Riviera where the live is good, but for us it is far more busy" Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland explains.
At Monaco we transmitted the EBU Worldfeed. Besides that we setup a studio for Globo TV Brazil.

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland in Monaco

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next race Canada on the 10th of june.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
Advent communications
Gigasat

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, monaco

The EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Barcelona, Spain

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.

Formula 1 Grandprix premio de España Santander:
Spain, Barcelona.
Special place and the first European held race of the season.

"It is nice to be working in Europe again" Gerben of Multi-Link Holland explains. "Here we can go with our uplink trucks and they give us some more freedom and also more technical flexibility. At the location we have our already famous 'triple dish trailer'. One 1,8M vertex dish used for SKY england and 2 times a 2,4m Vertex dish for the EBU F1 world feeds."

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland in Barcelona, Spain

Uplink technician Gerben : "In this truck we have 7 build-in HPA's. All internal power needs (except our catering) goes by a UPS system. We have 5 of them, that makes us capable to have a solution for every external power failure. This is very important, because history shows that power failures on the Formula 1 TV compound can happen. When it happen you can have besides an angry client also damaged equipment. That is something you must solve in front, our 5 UPS systems will do the job for sure.

The Encoder & Modulator rack for the EBUY transmission in Barcelona, Spain

Our Encoders and Modulators are still in the same racks as with the overseas 'fly-away' races. No changes at all in this, we just install and connect them in our truck. This saves a lot of time, and gives us the same secure setup at every single race..... worldwide.

The EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Barcelona, Spain

Working with our truck in Europe gives us also some more personal 'luxury' for our clients and our selfs. We bring our own catering. With a refrigerator , a microwave and ' very important' a coffee machine we are capable to arrange drinks lunch and snacks our selfs on the TV compound. We do not have to leave our location, in which on overseas location is different. There we have to leave the TV compound mostly to have some foods and drinks. Sometimes we do not have the possibility because of all the transmission we have to perform.

The 'Triple Dish uplink trailer' from Multi-Link Holland in Barcelona, Spain

Besides our 'triple dish trailer' we bring another uplink truck , the BEL002 , for the German broadcaster ZDF. In this truck we have a video edit-set installed with a Telestream Pipeline for a 4 channel live ingest. When the qualifying or race is running, the editor already is capable to edit in Final Cut Pro. Shortly after qualifying and race a final edit is transmitted to Germany for their live TV sports program.

German ZDF edit & uplink inside the BEL002 of Multi-Link Holland in Barcelona, Spain

For the ZDF we added a second dish, especial for their internet connection... a 4 Mbit connection by satellite " Gerben explained.

On the left the internet Dish, on the right the ZDF dish on the BEL002 in Barcelona, Spain

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next race Monaco... very special weekend, again a very special place on the 27th of may, Also here Multi-Link Holland will transmit with their triple dish trailer and uplink truck for ZDF.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Sky Sports
ZDF
Telestream Pipeline
Apple
Final Cut pro

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, Spain

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

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, Bahrain

3 Chinese uplink dishes for the EBU transmissions in Shanghai, China

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 UBS Chinese Grand Prix:
"We are in China now", Gerben Vissers of Multi-Link Holland explains.
"China is totaly different from the first 2 locations we transmitted from this season, Australia and Malaysia. In China, foreign companies like us cannot transmit themselves ! The transmitting of this event has to be done by a Chinese company. We were forced to hire 3 Chinese Uplinks. The problem is that these Chinese Uplinks do not have Mpeg 4 HD 4.2.2 encoders and NS3 modulators."

One of the 3 Chinese uplink-trucks in Shanghai , China

Gerben: "Than there is the communication with our Chinese colleagues, this is the most difficult part. We have 3 Chinese Trucks for the Uplinks. In these trucks there are working 12 Chinese technicians .... Just one of them speaks a little bit english , so imagine the communication with them. We have to use our hands and feet to get our things done"

Inside the Chinese uplink-trucks in Shanghai , China

Gerben: "We just use their Dishes and HPA's. The encoding we do our selfs from our own cabin on the TV compound. In the morning we ask them to start the transmission, and at the end of our working day we just ask them to stop transmitting. This is working smooth till now."

All signals Multi-Link Holland transmits for the EBU are checked by the Chinese government. The signals from their mobile MCR are first transported to a CCTV MCR of a Chinese government department. The reason of this is that the Chinese government wants to have the possibility in stopping the transmission of this event when they think this is needed for Chinese national security reasons.

The local mobile EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Shanghai , China

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next week Bahrain, this will be at least an 'interesting' locations because of the political situation in this country. The 3 Gigaset dishes are already on transport, so at least Multi-Link we be able to use their own equipment over there.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Mpeg
Gigasat

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, China

Event organizer “Stichting Skyway" organizes sensory music events for the deaf and hearing. The emotion of the music is transferred to the public with Aroma Jockeys, Vibrating dance floors, Taste sensations and Sign language dancers. The concept is very successful internationally as well and pulls the whole world with editions in Cape Town, Sydney, Miami and many European cities.

To understand what Sencity is, watch this video:

The podium in Rotterdam with the livestream from São Paulo on the beamer projection.

The feeling that they do not stand alone but together with their counterparts on the other side of the planet forms a unity, promotes confidence and self esteem. Thanks to the international technological knowledge of Connecting Media & Connecting Media Brasil we managed 'relatively easy' to set this up. It was very useful that Connecting Media at both locations could facilitate an expert team on the spot. Especially since this was the first project in which we worked with a Brazilian partner. We had no experience in the cultural differences that sometimes led to notable interviews:

Brazil:
"I've just sent the draft of the flyer - you can still look at it?"
Rotterdam:
Buuuuttt the event ... it's been about ten days, we still do that? "
Brazil:
"Mwah .. it is nice when people come to the event and get a flyer they can take home?"
Rotterdam:
"Flyers for the event itself ... aha ... buuuuuttt then you go in a different way to promote?"
Brazil:
"Oh .... I had not said that it was already sold out? "

The São Paulo event:

Sencity Flyers from São Paulo & Rotterdam

Ronald Ligtenberg:
“Eventually there were 2 very special editions with the Live Internet streaming which for some was ‘the’ highlight. The Brazilians who were in Rotterdam, had tears in their eyes when they saw their friends in São Paulo, in Brazil the audience got a lump in their throat when the deaf people saw their hero on stage in Rotterdam dancing. For me an unforgettable experience, and for 2200 attendees at both events as well!”

“The story continues with editions all over the world, but this one remains a special place in my heart!”

Live performances on the special vibrating floors on both locations.

Connecting Media and Connecting Media Brasil were able to put those live streams on both locations on huge beamer projections of 14 by 9 meters.
“We made a H264 Quicktime Livestream, to get the best quality. We we did not have too much bandwidth on the location in São Paulo, but we managed to make a good and stable live stream” René Schaap of Connecting Media Brasil told us.

The webcast setup of Connecting Media Brasil

The camera position was setup in a way so that when you looked at the live stream, it was like you were looking at the stage in Rotterdam from a spectators point of view. Meanwhile the sound from the stream was equalized so the special vibrating floors also worked with both livestreams. Connecting Media showed it can stream live even from Brazil .... worldwide.

------------

Tags: Webcast

Multiview monitoring at the mobile EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia

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 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix:
The race in Malaysia is just one week after the Melbourne Grand Prix, so all equipment and people had to be transported the day after the Melbourne event. It means that Multi-Link Holland had to dis-assemble all their dishes and their MCR just after this 'Down Under' race. Kuala Lumpur is a hot, very hot. " It is a heavy job here" Gerben told us. "Because of this hot temperatures we need to build our dishes at night, it is much cooler than. This year it is better than last year, we did not have to be on that metal construction underneath the dishes anymore because we made our own special construction for the dishes for this season. Also the air humidity is very high if you compare it to Melbourne... or any other Grand Prix location. So it is here where the air conditioning units has to do their job properly. We added some extra units at each dish, because all the cabins around our dishes blow hot air from their airco units towards our dishes. With these extra support our HPA's will stay cool "And about the strange dish position " We are almost under the equator, that's why our dishes have to 'look' straight up in to the sky"

3 Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions in Kuala Lumpur

There is another thing in Malaysia what can be a problem, the rain. When it rains here it's like they open a huge shower in full force above the circuit. "That's why we also transmit in C band, even when it rains extremely we stay up. The low frequencies easy pass through the rain, we only have to power up a little bit" Gerben explains. "Protection of equipment and cables against water is very important here. Because this type of dish is build-up by 18 panels, water from heavy rain will not stay in the dish, even in this position. Our HPA's are located in the new special construction underneath the dish, but all is made waterproof".

The local mobile EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next time China, in which we are getting more nice stories by Multi-Link Holland, new location.... new surprices.

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
Gigasat

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, Malaysia

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.

Melbourne Australia - 2012 Quantas Australian Grandprix:

3 huge Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions

Multi-Link Holland is using 3 fly-away uplink solutions in Melbourne Australia, 3 huge dishes of the Gigasat brand, type FA370. In Australia Multi-Link had to solve some local problems. They have to transmit in C-Band, this because of the unpredictable weather in Melbourne. "But some C-Band frequencies can not be used because of interference with the local police communication network" Gerben Vissers told us." it is the first race of the season so there are always 'new things' , this location is always relaxed, nice weather will make it a perfect season opener for us".

The dishes from the backsite, underneath the new construction.

This year Multi-Link improved their setup again. Gerben explains that they changed some things last months on the dish construction so they will never need a special construction on location anymore to get the dishes on a safe height, it is now build-in in the fly-away itself. Meanwhile they also found out a better method for the transport of these huge dishes. On the technical site they will use NS3 in stead of DVB-S2 to save a lot of bandwidth on several satellites.

The local mobile EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Melbourne , Australia

After the race we have to pack all immediately because it must go on transport to Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia the same night for next weeks race. All transport is done by D.O.T. They are very experienced in these kind of huge and tight logistical operations. Monday and Tuesday after the race we receive already our equipment in Malaysia and start to build up again.

More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next week more from Multi-Link Holland

mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
D.O.T.
Gigasat

Tags: Broadcast, Uplink, formula1, australia

Brasil
After the huge success of the last UFC event in Rio de Janeiro on August 2011, the organization decided to have another UFC event in Rio, few months after the first edition. UFC is BIG in Brazil!  Several local and foreign broadcast companies were on location to transmit live.The main TV Broadcasts were hosted by Alfacam Brasil, and two of their OB vans. Alfacam is a big international video-facility company, based in Belgium.  They opened their Brazil office last year at the PoloRio Cine&Video in Rio de Janeiro, and are ready for the market in Brazil, and of course their goal, to host the FIFA World-cup 2014 & Olympic games 2016 in Brazil.  Alfacam is a company with the capabilities and equipment for these international events, and provided the World-cup soccer & Olympic-games already before with OB-vans and classified people. But also companies from Brazil are in Rio with their equipment and people, like Brasil Rig, Gabisom, Globo & GloboSat. Both Globosat & Globo brought their own OB-vans. Casablanca Online is delivering all satellite uplink facilities for live but also play-outs , and had 8 uplink trucks on site, to deliver the uplinks for the TV stations.

Foreign
One of the most important parts of this production is communications. Not only intercom between technicians cameramen, etcetera, but also the language. The main spoken language is english. For audio visual professionals to work in an international production like the UFC event, they need to be able to communicate, both in word and writing, English. Nevertheless, walking on the production floor you also hear Flemish, Dutch & Portuguese. There is a mix of Europeans, Americans and Brazilians working together to produce the UFC event, apart from a few language problems here and there, this goes well because of the basic knowledge of english among the crew. It must be stressed however that it will be a challenge in the future of broadcasting in Brazil.

Event
The show went technically very well, but also the fighters from Brazil did their thing... they won a lot. We can expect the UFC back this year for sure in Rio de Janeiro or another city. These are important times for Broadcasting aligned companies in Brazil. With the 2 big events, the FIFA World-cup 2014 & Olympic games 2016 on our doorstep this UFC event shows that Brazil is technically ready for delivering top quality productions. If all personnel starts speaking and understanding better english there will be a wide market of jobs available for the local people.

mentioned:
UFC
Alfacam Brasil
Casablanca Online
SporTV GloboSAT
Globo TV

Tags: Broadcast, Sports, UFC, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro

Dutchman Patrick Hendriks is working @ Dakar 2012
The Dakar Rally 2012 starts just as the 3 editions before, in Argentina. After Argentina the Rally will continue through Chili and new this time…..the finish in Peru.
Patrick will try to do some updates of his job on this blog at the time of the Dakar 2012 Rally.

Patrick:
" I can choose between 5 feeds and 4 DVD players, besides that i will have effects and graphics on my video mixer. I make use of glassfibre cabling for all local connections in the bivouac. For bigger distances i will use DVB-T. All equipment, supplies and employee will be transferred from bivouac to bivouac by plane, everyday another location.

Used Equipment:
2 complete  DVB-T Transmitters
A few hundred personal receivers
DVD players
Videomixer
Audiomixer
And lots of cables

Above the rack with equipment, below we can see the ASO using a personal monitor.

More Photo's can being seen on our facebook page.

About Patrick Hendriks:
Patrick Hendriks performs his profession by his company BP Satellite Solutions B.V.
BP Satellite Solutions B.V. is specialized in sales, rental installation and de-installation of satellite transmitter and receiver systems. Besides this, BP Satellite Solutions B.V. has its own technical maintenance service, supplies SNG services and is the address for ecologically sound disposal of all your broadcast equipment. The first time Patrick Hendriks came into contact with transmitting was in 1978 through a twelve channel AM transmitter. From that moment his love affair with transmitting began. In 1980 he switched to FM 27 Mhz followed by a local radio station “Keizerstad” in Nijmegen . The appearance of the first ASTRA satellite on the scene was Patrick's first encounter with satellite television. That, in combination with his love for transmitting led to a newfound interest. This was also the time that he started installing “dishes” for family and friends. Patrick now has more than 25 years experience in the field and he has been globally active for the last 11 years. A little over fifteen years ago, Patrick switched to professional broadcasting. As an SNG operator he started with Sonotech in Hilversum after which he was an employee of United Broadcasting Facilities when they acquired Sonotech. After his stint at United it was time for a new challenge. Patrick became a freelancer and went to work for New Skies as a Payload Operations Controller. This brought him into contact with the other side of the professional spectrum. However, after two years the bug bit him once again and he returned to professional broadcasting.
The years followed Patrick was working as Technical Director for the German frim WIGE MEDIA AG. In that role he was responsible worldwide for the Formula 1 broadcasts of RTL Germany, RTL Netherlands, Sky Italia and ZDF Germany. As BP Satellite Solutions B.V. Patrick now takes care of all facilities for the F1 broadcasts for MTV3 Finland, Setanta Ireland, ViaSat Sweden / Denmark / Norway and RTL Netherlands. Also he still is hired by WIGE MEDIA AG for the final report of the Formula 1.

mentioned:
dakar
dakar on YouTube

Tags: Broadcast, Argentina, Chili, Peru, Dakar

Tags: Broadcast, Webcast, Mobile