NTA – NIGERIA FIFA U17 FOOTBALL WORLD CUP

NTA – NIGERIA FIFA U17 FOOTBALL WORLD CUP, Nigeria

THE BRIEF

With stringent specifications to meet for their coverage of the 2009 FIFA Under-17 Football World Cup, NTA Nigeria turned to C2S Media. Africa’s biggest broadcaster, they required complete renovation and upgrade work to their fleet of six 12-camera outside broadcast vehicles, and to their International Broadcast Centre (IBC) facility to give them the high definition capabilities needed to meet FIFA’s requirements. An uninterrupted power supply (UPS) capable of powering the IBC was also provided. To get NTA’s coverage on air, C2S Media installed a nine-metre C-Band earth station at the international stadium in Abuja, and supplied six HD portable satellite uplink systems.

C2S Media provided a further two 16-camera portable flyaway kits – including engineers and operators – to provide coverage of tournament games from two locations to the host broadcaster. To deliver this vast project within a tight timeframe, C2S Media planned and coordinated the purchase of thousands of items of equipment, and had 64 engineers working around the clock, seven days a week to complete work on time. C2S Media arranged training for engineers on the new systems, and even chartered an enormous Antonov cargo plane to transport the renovated HD O B trucks.

International Broadcast Centre

Upgrade of existing system from SD to HD, with complete rebuild of the video and control systems, and added 5.1 Remix facilities.
The facility is capable of switching 20 satellite and fibre external feeds and 16 internal stadium feeds, 12 VT and 8 Vectorbox transmission servers to 16 contribution circuits, and creating two main Live TX paths via Evertz QMC and Vectorbox systems

Key equipment installed included:

Evertz distribution equipment and Xenon 128×128 router with 128 output multi-viewer
Sony and Tektronix monitoring systems
Avid Post Production with Central storage from EditShare
Ingest transmission systems provided by means of 8x HD Vectorbox 8 0 0 0 with dual redundancy

12 Camera HD Outside Broadcast vehicle fleet

Upgrade of six 12-camera outside broadcast trucks from SD to HD capabilities, with complete internal refurbishment, including new monitor stacks, air conditioning and electrical and mechanical repair.
The overall OB upgrade utilised equipment from more than 60 manufacturers. Highlights included:
60 x Sony HSC-3 0 0 and 12 x HDC-3300 camera channels
36 x Canon X J Series box lenses
36 x Canon HJ Series barrel lenses
12 x six-channel EVS HD replay servers
6 x Sony MVS-8000 2.5ME vision mixer
6 x LAWO MC-56 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound audio desks
Evertz HD routing and multi-viewers
Evertz distribution equipment and control

Other requirements

Installation of 9m C-Band Earth Station at the international stadium in Abuja
Provision of six Temix HD portable satellite uplink systems
Temporary supply of two16-camera portable flyaway kits, including engineers and operators
Specially chartered air freight export arrangements