In Paris this weekend, NBA fans are all set to enjoy ESPN’s All-Access Paris 2025. Behind the scenes content of the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers visit to the French capital, as well as exclusive content from the match the two teams will play on Saturday, January 25, will also be available.
REMCO and REMI
ESPN is ensuring that key technologies—like its Above the Rim cameras—match U.S. production standards. This helps fans around the world enjoy the high-quality viewing they expect.
On the workflow for this event, ESPN creates and transmits the highest quality content back to the US. The The NBA World Feed uses ESPN’s REMCO model, which places production hardware onsite. Machine control then sends content directly back to ESPN’s base in Bristol, Connecticut.
Matching U.S. Production Standards from Paris
Meanwhile, the ESPN feed is a REMI production model. ESPN produces and integrates the feed from a Bristol, Connecticut-based control room.
REMCO and REMI
Speaking from Paris shortly before the first game that played out on Thursday 23 January, Okuno tells SVG Europe: “What we decided to do for the world feed is what we call at home our REMCO model, which is basically production on site. Just like before pre-COVID, everybody’s on site doing a production inside the OB truck.
“Meanwhile the production model for the ESPN show is we’re sharing the world feed truck, but we’re using a REMI model, which means we’re sending isolated feeds back to ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut. We have a control room there that’s integrating all of our feeds; we have eight feeds and we’re putting it all together and they will put out the final show.”
Seamless Integration with U.S. Workflows
“What we try to do is try to keep everything from the United States, all our workflows and all of our transmissions and everything else. We wanted to keep it identical so that the learning curve for crew was very small, but we had to make sure that the connectivity from Paris back to the United States was robust and I think we’re in a good spot with that right now.”
The REMCO workflow saves ESPN valuable milliseconds of latency. “What’s unique here,” says Okuno, “is that the world feed truck also creates a clean ESPN feed—with all the logos, replay wipes, and branded elements—at the same time. We’re able to do that because our crew, our production folks, are in the control room, so we’re able to simultaneously create this feed, which is going to be fantastic, I believe, because we get the quality of the world feed, but it is our ESPN branding.”
“Our integration control room in Bristol will take all these feeds, glue it all together, plus also take care of the ESPN business in the States so the world feed does what it needs to do.”
Hand in Hand
To meet U.S. standards, ESPN brought over key crew members, specific technologies, and its preferred workflows. Its technical services provider for the production is AMP Visual TV.
Explains Okuno: “The NBA partnered with ESPN, the U.S. rights holder, to produce the world feed. ESPN holds domestic rights for Saturday’s Paris Game only. ESPN flew its producer, director, and senior leads from the U.S. to take key roles. They’re working hand in hand with AMP Visual’s crew and OB truck to build the world feed.”
A Truly Global Production Effort
He goes on: “We are creating up to 19 transmission paths from the mobile unit for all of the feeds. ESPN has brought our REMI technologies over from the States to here, to have consistency in our workflows and our technical workflows. Tata Communications is handling file transfers between Paris, ESPN, the NBA in the U.S., and other broadcast partners.”
CMSI solutions connect to ESPN’s Paris ENG teams and the OB truck. They manage, transcode, and transfer content to both ESPN in Bristol and NBA headquarters in Secaucus, NJ.
“What we try to do is try to keep everything from the United States, all our workflows and all of our transmissions and everything else,” Okuno adds. “We wanted to keep it identical so that the learning curve for crew was very small, but we had to make sure that the connectivity from Paris back to the United States was robust and I think we’re in a good spot with that right now.”
On site in Paris there are three other broadcast rights holders, which are BeIN Sport, Canal+, and ProSieben. Says Okuno: “They’re all on site producing their studio productions, pre-game shows, post-game shows, as well as setting up commentary positions because they have rights to broadcast.”
Above the Rim
The broadcaster is giving ESPN’s All-Access Paris NBA event the gold standard treatment, which means bringing technological innovations to Europe to match the NBA productions that ESPN carries out in the US.
To that end, as well as importing key technologies such as player mic’s from the US, several NEP departments are supporting ESPN, including specific cameras and graphics systems.
Each match uses 14 cameras. NEP’s specialty capture group supplies two Fletcher robotic systems with Sony P-50s for the unique ‘Above The Rim’ perspective.
Above The Rim provides audiences at home the opportunity to watch the game from above, with robotic cameras located directly above each basket with full coverage of both ends of the court.
“The specialty is we do have super slowmo cameras,” notes Okuno. “I think we have one super slowmo camera at Centre Court, which is not often done in Europe, but we were able to get the position that’s a very traditional legacy camera in the States. So we were able to secure that. And then the two above – the Rim robotic cameras – which are on top of the Tissot clock displays. They’re operated underneath the grandstand with their remote control panels.”
Powered by CMSI’s Remote Production Workflow
The Rim cameras give ESPN’s directors a gamified visual style. “You can see directly into the paint and across to the other side of the court,” says Okuno. So you’re able to what we call cross shooting; you’re able to see all 10 players from the side, and then you’re able to see the fast break come down and tilt down. You’ll be able to see all the players right below you. So you’re above all these very tall players because the camera is mounted on top of the score on the display.”
Adds Okuno: “In the States during our NBA championship rounds, we would add SkyCam. We would have over 10 super slowmo high frame rate cameras. Unfortunately we could not do that here. But what we did is we worked with the NBA together to say, “let’s bring the world feed quality to our ESPN REMCO level” and everybody was on board and now we’re here.”
Mic'd Up Players
NEP Rentals is supporting ESPN’s RF audio focus – Q5X player, coaches and referee mics – with Gen5 VizRT gear for ESPN’s graphics and ‘clock & score’ systems from the US. ESPN mic’s up players on all of its weekend primetime games as standard, as well as on all playoff games, NBA conference finals and NBA finals. For ESPN’s All-Access Paris, it has bought all its usual RF audio equipment including the mics from Q5X.
Okuno explains: “We brought RF audio gear, including our player and coach mics. Inside the AMP truck, we set up an edit room with an EVS and producer to handle those live feeds. They listen to them and they build edited packages to playback into the show. They are not allowed to be on live because of censorship and making sure the content is protected.”
Source : Sports Video Group
