NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, has selected Amagi to provide UHD playout with cloud automation for its production of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, for coverage to run on Olympic Channel. The announcement was made by Anil Abraham, director, Systems Architecture, NBC Olympics, and Srinivasan KA, co-founder, Amagi.
As part of the agreement, Amagi will deploy its cloud playout platform, Amagi CLOUDPORT, and live sports/news automation solution, Amagi LIVE, to create Olympic Channel’s live coverage in UHD. With HEVC playout and mezzanine quality UHD encoding, Amagi CLOUDPORT architecture creates a new benchmark for video transmission over IP, especially for a global and premium live sporting event such as the Olympic Games.
Key features of Amagi’s playout and automation solution include:
- Compute-efficient architecture with entire UHD playout on CPUs and no GPUs
- Containerised and componentised architecture leveraging Kubernetes
- Micro-services for scaling video processing on demand
- Browser-based UI for real-time controls with end-to-end low latency operations
- Rich graphics with DVE effects including HTML graphics, live closed captioning support, and live-to-VOD recording capability
- End-to-end software solution including multi-view monitoring, hitless switching and 24/7 tech support
Amagi has provided deep integration with NBCUniversal’s existing workflows to ensure seamless operational capability to the network’s various teams.
“NBC Olympics, along with NBC Sports Group, are together setting a shining example of how sports broadcasters can put the power of cloud technologies to create unparalleled experience for the viewers as well as those involved in managing broadcast operations,” said Srinivasan KA. “Amagi is delighted to be their cloud technology partner and create new milestones in live sports broadcast on a global scale through innovation, superior quality and reliability.”
“Amagi’s support for JPEG-XS, SMPTE 2110, and AMWA NMOS along with a cloud native software architecture combines to give NBC Olympics a powerful solution for UHD playout,” said Abraham. “It is a game changing combination that allows for the flexibility of cloud based remote control with the low video latencies expected for sports.”