NBC Sports employed 16 channels of Abekas’ Mira Production server for the Football Night in America production during Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona. Mira delivered content to on-set displays at three different locations around the University of Phoenix Stadium, and was used for clip playback during live coverage of the pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows.
At the NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Conn., another 40 channels of Mira Production and an Abekas Tria are the backbone of all on set graphics playback across four control rooms for all NBC Sports broadcasts. An optimum workflow has been established that delivers graphics on-air far faster than previous systems. The graphics department uploads graphic packages to a dedicated Mira transcode channel. The transcoded clips are then automatically uploaded to a storage area network (SAN). Each Mira is connected to the central storage system via the internal LAN. For the Super Bowl, this workflow was extended via wide area network (WAN) to the NEP SS24 remote truck at the stadium.
“We have created a very efficient graphics playback system centered on Mira,” explained Craig Bernstein, director of remote technical operations, NBC Sports. “Using Mira Servers in Phoenix was a no-brainer for us. It saved us a considerable amount of manpower hours because the graphics team didn’t need to recreate all of our existing content to accommodate another clip playback system in the truck. With Mira on board and connected through to Stamford, all of our clips can simply be transferred to the Mira Servers on the truck already transcoded and ready for air. This also means that last minute graphics changes are easily accommodated.”
The nature of live sports means last minute changes. Sponsors might change or players might be injured, and these events require new last minute graphics. The graphics department in Stamford creates new packages and follows their normal workflow—the new graphics are transferred to the Mira at the remote location and can be used on-air moments later.
“The technical directors for Football Night in America requested the use of Mira at the Super Bowl,” said Bernstein. “We have really come to rely on Mira—it’s a rock solid product and extremely user friendly. The fact that we were easily able to extend our workflow from Stamford to Phoenix makes it difficult to imagine using any other multi-channel clip playback server for this type of event.”
The maturity of the battle-hardened interface means doing even the most complex clip playback sequences are very straight forward. Using AMP protocol, a technical director can cue all 16 channels of Mira instantaneously, dramatically simplifying the operation and interface to the switcher on game day.
“The fact that NBC Sports relied on Mira for their live coverage of the most-watched TV program on the planet is a testament to the product’s reliability and ease-of-use,” said Junaid Sheikh, CEO, Abekas. “NBC has standardized on Mira for all studio productions; in addition to the 48 Channels at Stamford, there are over 180 channels at NBC Networks at 30 Rock.”
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More