Stop 2: Central Equipment Room
The Central Equipment Room (CER) plays a key role in the broadcast set-up of the FIFA World Cup™. This is the nerve centre where the Broadcast Contribution Network (BCN), which interconnects in one singular network both the IBC and all stadiums, converges to receive and distribute the feeds to all relevant stakeholders, whether they have operations at the IBC, at the stadiums, or at their home base in their own countries.
Using the latest tech innovations, the Central Equipment Room and its associated broadcast network are changing the way processing is handled on the FIFA World Cup™, using software-based infrastructure to offer more flexible solutions for Host Broadcast and Media Partner operations.
- Broadcast Contribution Network
Redundancy is the most important part of any broadcast set-up, and the Broadcast Contribution Network (BCN) on the FIFA World Cup™ is no exception to the rule. The FIFA World Cup™ Broadcast Contribution Network, which is dedicated to the transport of data, video and audio signals for the competition, uses an IP ST2110 set-up withrelying on two different paths for each transmission, ensuring a fail-safe method to seamlessly deliver the signals between the venues, the IBC and the Media Partners. A third route has been added to the network as an additional risk mitigation element, due to event’s scale as well as the geographical scope of the competition.
The Broadcast Contribution Network covers competition sites and works both ways; some feeds originating from the venues are being sent to the IBC, and others the other way round, both for multilateral and unilateral usage.
More so than ever, it is imperative that the Broadcast Contribution Network is fully redundant, as some multilateral activities are centralised at the IBC (replays, shading) and more Media Partners operating remotely and generally a scale up in quantity of content transmitted compared to previous FIFA World Cup™ editions.
- Central Equipment Room
At the heart of broadcast technical set up is the Central Equipment Room (CER), revolving around a system of inputs and outputs, depending on whether the system is receiving signals at/or originated from the IBC. Traditionally, CERs function with dedicated broadcast hardware, but for this FIFA World Cup™, FIFA has leveraged groundbreaking technologies to switch to IP technologies and software-based processing rather than relying on legacy broadcast hardware.
(insert CER F&F)
Servers are configured by the Engineering team to transport and direct the signals (audio, video and data) to their destination; this is now done in a dematerialised fashion. Using fully ST2110 IP–based infrastructure, workflows are now based off a Dynamic Media Facility (DMF), which allows for the optimising of the set-up, being more scalable for both Host Broadcast operations and Media Partners, as well as offering a fully customisable, flexible workflow experience. It also reduces the physical footprint of the CER by up to 20% compared to previous FIFA World Cup™ editions.
Another evolution of the broadcast technical set-up is the last-step decompression of the signals received and distributed to multilateral or unilateral delivery points. This allows for the transport of more signals using less bandwidth, which is beneficial considering the scope of this FIFA World Cup™, as well as the increased centralisation at the IBC of some additional live operations, such as replay, shading and audio mixing operations.
Screen Content (videos ?)
BNC/stadium contribution graphics, F&F CER, Stadium Services Diagram