| By: Carolyn Braff, Managing Editor | Published: December 3, 2009 |
As the architect of ESPN’s transmission plan for coverage of the 2010 World Cup, Emory Strilkauskas’s job is to be invisible. If he does it right, viewers across the U.S. and Brazil will never know that the high-definition feeds of all 64 tournament matches have traveled 9,000 miles under the ocean to reach their television screens.
“The goal of our network is to be transparent, so that we can accommodate all of the applications and innovation surrounding the World Cup,” Strilkauskas says. “We want to minimize the 9,000-mile distance [the signal must travel]. With advanced networking technology, we have that capability.”
That technology begins in-house at ESPN, where the network has built its own private network between Johannesburg and New York. With the help of a DTM Net Insight platform, two undersea fiber-optic cables connect the two cities along ESPN’s network, enabling ESPN to distribute content from South Africa to its broadcast partners worldwide.
“That’s our own private network, so that’s a technical achievement,” Strilkauskas says. “Everything will be brought back to New York, the main hub of activity for our private network. We have existing network capacity that we work with on a daily basis between the U.S. and Brazil, Argentina, and the UK. It’s an advanced network so we can multicast or go out to the other facilities as needed.”
In addition to transmitting the 64 game feeds and pre-game, post-game, and halftime shows from 10 stadiums, Strilkauskas’s team must support the more than two dozen ENG crews and news and information shows that will originate in South Africa over the course of the tournament.
ESPN also owns the rights to broadcast the tournament in Brazil, so Strilkauskas’s team will be providing Brazil with transport solutions and high-definition feeds throughout the tournament.
The games will be produced by FIFA and HBS in 1080i/50, and all of the content will be brought back to ESPN’s main private-network hub in New York, where it will be converted to 720p/60.
“It’s an Olympic-size event so they can’t support multiple broadcasters doing their own productions of the games,” Strilkauskas explains. “It wouldn’t be technically or physically feasible. So FIFA and HBS put together the broadcast and handle distribution all the way to the [International Broadcast Center]. From there, we have a production facility that a remote-production team is working on.”
That facility will include control rooms and edit suites to add to the production of the live games as well as to support the studio and news programming surrounding the event. ESPN is also building a transmission facility onsite that will connect to the undersea cables.
“There are challenges there with the type of technologies needed to move video,” Strilkauskas says. “There are limited cables going to South Africa. It’s quite a bit different than New York to Europe. Bandwidth is limited, and the cost of doing business is a little higher than the other regions we’ve done business with in the past.”
Latency is cause for concern with any data application, but the biggest question mark is undoubtedly ESPN’s local telco partner, Telcom.
“We’re confident in Telcom, but we’ve never done business with them, so that’s always a challenge,” Strilkauskas says. “They’ve never done business with us, so they’re equally concerned and want to get this up and running. We’re confident in the technology choice that we made and in our network ability, so that offsets some of the nerves going into it.”
A staff of five will initially be on hand to run the transmission-operation facility, but, as World Cup South Africa morphs into a 24/7 operation, Strilkauskas expects his number of helping hands to rise accordingly.
ESPN began planning for World Cup transmission three years ago, and not all the requirements have been finalized. Half of Strilkauskas’s work week is devoted to World Cup preparations, and that percentage will increase as June 11 creeps closer.
ESPN will have no dry run on its transmission capabilities. Once the calendar reads June, Strilkauskas’s team has four days to get the signals flowing properly.
“It’s do or die,” Strilkauskas says. “There’s a lot riding on this event, and a little bit of pressure.”
If all goes well for ESPN, come June 11, the world will be watching.
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