NBC Olympics Chooses Avid for Sixth Consecutive Broadcast of Olympic Games

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that it will deploy the most comprehensive Avid workflow in the history of NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group to support its coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games taking place in London, England, July 27-August 12, 2012.

“Ingesting media and metadata directly into Interplay MAM early in the process allows us to have assets immediately available for video production in London and, at the same time, for the users at 30 Rock”

Marking NBC’s Olympics division’s and Avid's sixth consecutive Summer or Winter Games working together, NBC’s Olympics division’s broadcast facility will house employees responsible for delivering 17 consecutive days of Olympic coverage. At the heart of this massive undertaking is the Avid Interplay® Media Asset Management (MAM) system. Serving in conjunction with third party vendors, SONY and Harmonic, the Interplay MAM system will be used to create two simultaneous feeds for use in London and at NBC’s Olympics division’s headquarters in New York City.

“Ingesting media and metadata directly into Interplay MAM early in the process allows us to have assets immediately available for video production in London and, at the same time, for the users at 30 Rock,” said Darryl Jefferson, director, Post Production Operations, NBC Olympics. “In NY, they need to access the same media and metadata to create their packages to the web instantaneously. Having MAM at the core is a critical component to making this happen.”

All of the video content’s metadata, including all athletic content, will be ingested directly from Sony’s XDCam Station into Avid’s Interplay MAM system and, once there, replicated from London to New York using Harmonic’s MediaGrid and ProCast solutions. In New York, media coming from Interplay MAM will be used by more than 40 users to create highlights for web distribution. London-based users and editors will get immediate access to Olympic footage, which can then be transferred from Interplay MAM to Avid’s ISIS® shared storage for use in multi-user, simultaneous production across multiple networks and news feeds.

“For our Olympics coverage, we need industry-leading partners that can deliver a level of quality, speed and reliability everyone can rely on,” said David Mazza, senior vice president, Engineering, NBC Olympics. “And that’s exactly what Avid gives us.”

HD nonlinear edit suites in London’s International Broadcast Center (IBC) are outfitted with seven Avid Symphony® and 26 Media Composer® systems for high-end editing and 5.1 surround sound. The systems will be connected to Avid ISIS shared storage and Avid Interplay production asset management systems. Users will be able to quickly browse the Interplay MAM proxy and transfer material faster than real-time for use in Symphony and Media Composer editing software applications. AirSpeed® 5000 is used in conjunction with ISIS 7000 to create turnkey production islands at the Olympic venues, including gymnastics, swimming, diving, and track and field.

“All of us at Avid are proud to be part of NBC’s Olympics division's presentation of the Olympic Games for the sixth consecutive time,” said Gary Greenfield, chairman and CEO, Avid. “For the 2012 Olympic Games, NBC’s Olympics division’s broadcast facility puts in play a great utilization of our core products, especially Interplay media asset management and ISIS storage, and serves to underscore our commitment to solutions that sports and news media companies count on to deliver the best programming in the industry today.”

About NBC Olympics:

A division of the NBC Sports Group, NBC Olympics is responsible for producing, programming and promoting Olympic coverage across the networks of NBCUniversal. It is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in U.S. television history.

Having produced every Summer Olympics since Seoul in 1988 and every Winter Olympics since Salt Lake City in 2002, the networks of NBC Universal are synonymous with the Games in the United States. In 2011, NBC Universal acquired the U.S. media rights on all platforms to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and the 2020 Summer Olympics. At the conclusion of the 2020 Games, NBC Universal will have presented 17 total Olympic Games and 11 consecutive, the most for a U.S. media company in both categories.

NBC has won an unprecedented 91 Emmy Awards for its Olympics coverage, as well as a prestigious Peabody Award for its presentation of the Beijing Opening Ceremony in 2008, which USA Today said was “the best overall Olympic experience ever provided by a U.S. network.” In addition to its unsurpassed heritage and award-winning production, NBC Universal is known for aggregating large Olympic audiences, as nine of the top 11 most-watched U.S. television events of all time are Olympic Games presented across the networks of NBC Universal. The Beijing Summer Olympics rank No. 1 with 215 million viewers.

About Avid

Avid creates the digital audio and video technology used to make the most listened to, most watched and most loved media in the world – from the most prestigious and award-winning feature films, music recordings, television shows, live concert tours and news broadcasts, to music and movies made at home. Some of Avid’s most influential and pioneering solutions include Media Composer, Pro Tools, Interplay®, ISIS®, VENUE, Sibelius®, System 5, and Avid Studio. For more information about Avid solutions and services, visit www.avid.com, del.icio.us, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube; connect with Avid on Facebook; or subscribe to Avid IndustryBuzz.

© 2012 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved Product features, specifications, system requirements and availability are subject to change without notice. All prices are USMSRP for the U.S. and Canada only and are subject to change without notice. Contact your local Avid office or reseller for prices outside the U.S. and Canada. Avid, the Avid logo; Avid Motion Graphics, Media Composer, Pro Tools, Interplay, ISIS, and Sibelius are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. The Interplay name is used with the permission of the Interplay Entertainment Corp. which bears no responsibility for Avid products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.