Technical Infrastructure For Commonwealth Games 2006
TWI Australia
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What we do
TWI Australia selected leading broadcast solutions provider Gravity Media – then branded Gearhouse Broadcast – to provide technical infrastructure for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Held over a 12-day period in March, the Games included competition across multiple sporting codes, at events split across 16 different venues.
The scale and complexity of the project demanded precision planning in terms of project management and logistics.
What we used
Gravity Media provided facilities for a number of events, including the Opening and Closing ceremonies and track and field events, which all took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
Work required for MSG facility was substantial and complex. Coverage there was achieved by providing four separate control rooms, enabling delivery of separate feeds of the simultaneous events.
The control rooms were divided to cover track events, throws, horizontal jumps, and vertical jumps. Each control room had its own vision mixer and audio mixing area, and generated four specific feeds that were delivered to the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) and on-site unilateral facilities, such as BBC, TVNZ, and Channel 9 Australia.
The large SDI routing switcher was at the heart of the system. It was used to drive all sources and destinations, enabling an extremely flexible facility. The router allowed fast reconfiguration of the system from completion of the Opening Ceremony, to the start of the competition.
For the aquatics events, which took place at the State Aquatic Centre, Gravity Media utilised a state-of-the-art Outside Broadcast (OB) Unit, which contained 20 cameras.
Outcome
Phil Goulden, Technical Operations Manager from TWI, commented “We have worked with Gearhouse Broadcast on a number of projects in the past, and they continue to provide a great service with an extensive range of equipment available. They have an excellent understanding of our technical and operational requirements, and always provide an efficient and reliable support service”.
