PITTSBURGH, Pa. (March27, 2018) – NEP Group, the leadingworldwide outsourced technical production partner of premier content producersof live sports and entertainment, is exhibiting at this year’s NAB Show, weeksafter successfully supporting multiple clients, including Discovery and itsleading sports brand Eurosport, at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. Starting April 9, NEPstaff will be on hand in NAB Booth 3714 in the South Upper Hall at the LasVegas Convention Center to answer questions about its comprehensive set of broadcast,live event and media solutions used to cover over 100 medal events and 18 daysof Olympic competition. Demonstrations of its media asset management tool,Mediabank, and NEP’s augmented reality (AR) capabilities will be available atthe show.

During the Games, 14 NEP Divisions provided glass-to-glass solutionsto enable clients to broadcast the Games, including Discovery, which delivered its first-ever coverage of the Games across 48countries in Europe on free-to-air, pay-tv and every minute online across thecontinent for the very first time. Overall, more than 20 venues were supported by 300 NEP technicalexperts on the groundin South Korea and 100 in NEPEurope locations, including 17 studios. The successful implementation of these solutions for Discovery and others was madepossible through NEP’s unique infrastructure, including several hubs andfacilities across Europe. 

“Discovery set the ambitiousgoal of reaching more people on more screens for the Olympic Winter Games thanever before, redefining the viewing experience for viewers and fans acrossEurope. It was a massive team effort to broadcast 4000 hours of coverage, in 48markets, more than 20 languages and from multiple locations to millions ofviewers across the continent,” said Simon Farnsworth, Discovery Executive VicePresident, European and Sports Technology. “We are pleased to have honouredthis commitment at the Games. Critical to our success was enhancing ourin-house capabilities with technical expertise proven at the biggest sportingevents in the world.  NEP integratedseamlessly into our global operation and provided additional technical experts,innovative solutions and a true spirit of collaboration and partnership,on-site in South Korea and throughout Europe, which played a significant rolein our delivery of the Games across Europe.”

NEP’s support of Discovery included:

• Custom buildout of the International Broadcast Centre, which fully integrated more than 85 racks of equipment that underpinned its operations hub, production control rooms, audio suites and edit facilities supplied by NEP, supporting directors, producers, journalists and production engineers during the Games.
• Centralized sourcing of 50 remote commentary feeds to synchronize multiple video and audio feeds simultaneously, including auto-audio mixing, between remote commentator booths at events in Korea and commentary booths throughout Europe.
• Avirtual studio based in Hilversum, The Netherlands, for the fast-paced “WinterGames Today” live daily show on Eurosport 1 (Eurosport Benelux) and availablefor download through the Eurosport Player. Eurosport Benelux used the Hilversum virtual studioand NEP’s AR capabilities as a replacement for a realstudio. Only occupying a physical footprintof 5x5 meters, NEP’s graphics teams transformed Eurosport’s coffee corner into an entirevirtual set (the “green box”), including a virtual LED wall and a number of AR layeredelements.
• AnOslo-based broadcast center built for Discovery Communications. As part, NEPsupplied studios and facilities with AR graphics to support the daily production of multipleshows: OL Direkte: Studio(“Olympics Live: Studio”), OL i dag (“Olympics Today”), and OL-Kveld("Late Night Olympics”).
• Mediabank, NEP’s cloud-based toolbox ofworkflow solutions, to easily ingest, tag, review, edit and distributeDiscovery’s content across a dozen European viewing markets.

NEP’s broadcast services,including seven outside broadcast/mobile units, snowmobile coverage, flypacksand more, rounded out these client solutions.

“It has been a tremendousopportunity and privilege to support Discovery on their inaugural Olympic Games,”said Keith Lane, Vice President of Client Services for Discovery / Eurosport,NEP UK. “NEP is unique in the industry in that we have the depth of technicaltalent and diversity of service offerings to be able to deliver this kind of large-scalesupport. This event was special in comparison to anything we’ve done before –the number of countries, regions, cultures and languages involved, plus thecomplexity of our solutions, was staggering. We have some of the best people inthe business, and I’m proud of what they did and how much they accomplished forour clients. We are very much looking forward to working with Discovery’s team again.”

To learn more about NEP’s solutions and to see demonstrations of NEP’s Mediabankand AR solutions, visit NEP at Booth 3714, South Hall (UpperLevel), at NAB 2018.