During the past 10 extremely busy days, I've been working to bring the Olympics from Beijing to your couch at home. Since the actual process is long and complicated, I'll break it down in very simple terms:
- video of the events (track and field, swimming, archery, etc) is shot at the venues (National Stadium, Aquatics Center, etc..) and sent to the CDT (where I work.)
- the video is then sent within the IBC to all the Rights-Holding Broadcasters (NBC, BBC, etc.)
- the RHBs package all the video with commentary and commercials, etc and send it to the satellite farm directly outside the IBC.
- the complete programs are then uplinked to various satellites hovering in earth's orbit.
- the video is then transmitted from the satellites to all the RHBs in their local countries and then distributed to local TV stations and then to your house (in a nutshell.)
viola!!!
(my apologies to all the broadcast folks reading this... I'm trying to explain it as simply as possible here :)
so, seeing as I've been here for nearly a month, I suppose it's fitting that I finally show you some pictures of where I'm spending the majority of my time. The CDT. CDT stands for Contribution, Distribution & Transmission (it's in the middle of the IBC.. I know, too many acronyms)... anyone that actually wants me to explain any of this in further detail can see me after class.
away we go!:
in front of the DX (distribution) monitors. a bunch of small TV screens? nope.. what you're looking at here are six 103-INCH flat-screen monitors!!! I have outlined one in yellow to show the actual size and scale. It takes at least 4 grown men to lift one of these bad boys... imagine having one at home!
in front of the "smaller" monitors. there are 36 of these in the room, each displaying 12-16 feeds at once.
at my desk. I'm happy about all the green lines on the network monitoring screen (left). green=good!
another shot of the 103" monsters. top middle is displaying the opening ceremony.
Here I am posing quite geekishly in front of some of our Nimbra 680 nodes. This is the gear responsible for safely transporting the video signal from the stadiums to the CDT, all via fiber optics. My team and I are responsible for maintaining the health of the network, which consists of about 150 of these finely-tuned, mean, lean, Swedish-engineered machines. A shout out to all my good friends at Net Insight, the company responsible for manufacturing these magnificent beasts.
well, that's all for now. time for bed!
I'll try to keep the updates coming!
5 comments:
Okay, call me the total nerd.. I want to see that Nimbra map with all of the green lines!!!
We're soooo... proud of you. We love you and miss you too. Can you guess who we are? That's right! Wow, you're good!{those funny-looking letters you have to copy are not meant for us "old peeps"}
Another geek comment. how many N680s and N360s are you managing. Do you interface at all with the transmission parties for the rights holders like Eurovision, CBC or NBC?
I don't have a geeky comment, but i think this is....neat :)
Miss you!!
Can you bring back a couple of those monitors for peeps back home?
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