The summer finally arrived (despite the notable absence of the sun and enough rain to fill the Olympic pool many times over) and with it a mouth watering array of world class sporting action. Timeline is at the heart, ensuring safe delivery of hundreds of hours of the best live and post produced sports programming.
From the first serve on Centre Court to the relentless pursuit of the peloton as it swarms onto the Champs-Elysees, from the tee-off at the Royal Lytham and St Annes to the fall of the chequered flag at Silverstone, from the top of the Derby Bank to the cries of one hundred and eighty in Blackpool, from the sound of the starters gun to the dash to the line in Weymouth – Timeline is there.
In SW19, Timeline once again provided the All England Club, IMG & the BBC, and other rights holding broadcasters an end to end tapeless solution. All services from ingest, logging, edit and play-out though to archive are handled by Timeline including access to the past archive for search and retrieval. This incredible setup includes over fifty EVS IP Director terminals and seamless integration into a variety of edit platforms including Avid & FCP. Likewise at the Open Golf Tournament a similar collaborative system is in play. Once again multiple broadcasters are sharing storage and workflow infrastructure including ingest, logging edit and play-out.
In Weymouth we are providing the technical services supporting Sunset + Vine’s production of the BBC Olympic sailing coverage. Timeline are supplying two radio camera boats embedding the BBC presenters in the thick of the action and allowing post race interviews live from the water. This prestigious sailing event follows our highly successful coverage of the Volvo Ocean race. Timeline provided all host broadcaster facilities in ten ports worldwide from Auckland to Galway including RF chase boats, helicopter cameras, long range shore cams and a host of other broadcast services. The record breaking coverage was watched by viewers on television and the internet all over the world.
At ITN’s Grays Inn Road headquarters we have built a shared ingest, log, edit and play-out environment for the three Australian non-rights holders to support their Olympic news coverage. This innovative arrangement allows 7 Net, Ch 10 and ABC to enjoy the highest quality facilities whilst benefiting from reduced costs. The IP Director system affords the production teams instant access to multiple news feeds, rushes and live standup positions to ensure their tight news deadlines are kept. Timeline also fully integrated their Avid and FCP edit laptops into the system.
Our F1 team continues their tour of the globe supporting the BBC & Sky’s world class operations; including managing one of the largest mobile edit server systems in the world. Timeline continue to supply server and edit facilities for many of Sky Sports prestigious OB’s including the All England Jumping Club Hickstead and World Matchplay darts from Blackpool. Closer to home we are busy preparing for kick-off for the 2012-13 football league season with IMG who have renewed their contract with the BBC.
At our Ealing headquarters V2:TV produced live and highlights coverage of the illustrious Tour de France for ITV4. This culminated with a live show on ITV1 when Bradley Wiggins made history as he became the first Briton to win the Tour de France. As well as occupying four of our edit suites we built new vision and sound galleries for TX. Meanwhile Racing UK, Turf TV and GBI continue to serve up their prized menu of daily live horse racing. Highlights include the prestigious Glorious Goodwood meeting.
Timeline North is also extremely busy post producing a host of content for the BBC including sports, factual, learning, children’s and religion. Later in the year post will begin on the BBC’s prestigious “Sports Personality of the Year” show. In our Soho facility Clean Cut Media continue to produce the weekly ATP Uncovered show as well as a variety of other sporting and corporate content.
With our innovative and trusted technical solutions playing key roles in the coverage of so many major sporting events this year Timeline is proud of its contribution to the summer of sport. So as you perch tensely on the edge of your sofa, punch the air in delight, or turn away in disgust, spare a thought for our talented team of engineers and operators squirreled away in cold dark rooms, quietly playing their part in bringing the action closer than ever before.
