Avid Powers Success for Seven Network’s Coverage of 2016 Summer Games in Rio

Avid® (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced that NEP Group, Inc. embraced Avid graphics solutions to provide turnkey broadcast production services for Seven Network’s coverage of the recently concluded Summer Games in Rio. The 2016 Olympics represented the largest sports broadcast operation and most comprehensive Olympic coverage ever undertaken by an Australian organization. Avid solutions enabled NEP Group to efficiently deliver a massive amount of high-quality, engaging, and immersive content to Seven Network for distribution across a variety of channels and devices.

“The world’s biggest media companies are displaying greater and greater reliance on Avid solutions to solve their most pressing technical, operational, and business challenges,” said Jeff Rosica, senior vice president and chief sales and marketing officer at Avid. “Nowhere was this more apparent than in Rio, where Avid solutions helped power coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games—one of the largest media events in the world. We are honored to see top media organizations like NEP Group leverage the Avid MediaCentral® Platform to create and deliver the highest-quality content to audiences.”

NEP constructed a three-channel broadcast center in Sydney, Australia to supply fully- integrated, complete sports programming to Seven Network’s transmission hub in Melbourne. The turnkey broadcast center was built to handle all aspects of production, from makeup and wardrobe, to cameras, asset management, graphics, post-production, and more. Additionally, NEP Group provided all facilities and support for Seven Network’s presence at the Rio International Broadcast Center (IBC).

To deliver high-quality graphics and real-time augmented reality content for the production, NEP Group worked with Sydney-based design firm DD8. An end-to-end Avid graphics solution centered around Maestro, TD Control, RealSet, and PowerWall provided the power, flexibility, integration, and control that NEP and DD8 required to produce live motion graphics, lower thirds, and augmented reality for the enormous undertaking.

“An event as large and complex as the Rio games can be very challenging and demanding,” stated Angus Millar, head of Production at NEP Australia. “We spent a year assessing possible graphics solutions for the Rio games, and demoed solutions from several vendors. Only Avid offered a complete integrated system with the power and reliability we needed.”

The deployment included a three-camera augmented reality system—the first of its kind in Australia. With three cameras outputting augmented reality data, directors could cut to any of the cameras and maintain the audience’s view of the graphics.

“The power and flexibility of the Avid graphics solutions is very impressive,” stated Adam Duncombe, managing director at DD8. “The openness and integration are far better than other solutions, and the creative capabilities allow designers to push the boundaries and generate dynamic visuals that engage the audience. It’s a level of power that isn’t available anywhere else in the marketplace.”

NEP Group also used complete Avid post-production and newsroom solutions to deliver content for three Seven Network channels. Eleven Media Composer® suites and a Pro Tools® suite were managed via Interplay® | Production with Avid shared storage solutions providing centralized storage for the team.  

“The integration between iNEWS® and TD Control was an added bonus for us,” concluded Millar. “It enabled us to prepare graphics ahead of time and allow the operator to finesse them just before air. We were also able to integrate our live motion graphics with data systems and feeds. Avid graphics ticked all the boxes for us and provided one system to rule them all.”