Third of second: how residents of Tomsk provided broadcast of WC 2018

TOMSK, Jul 18 – RIA Tomsk. Elecard Company provided broadcast of the FIFA World Cup – 2018, its equipment allowed to transfer image from stadiums to representatives of the press with the minimum delay in 0,3 seconds. What showed in locker rooms of football players, how to save the ether with one switch and why Japanese watched best in the world "picture" – in material of RIA Tomsk.

Earlier it was reported that the FIFA World Cup took place from June 14 to July 15, 2018 at stadiums in 11 cities of Russia. The Tomsk Company "Elecard" signed the contract for ensuring broadcast of matches at stadiums. Its experts proposed such solutions on transfer of video which had to simplify work of commentators and allow the audience to see better broadcasting.

High-quality reportage

Sixteen specialists of Elecard arrived to the cities of holding the World Cup in two weeks prior to start of the competitions. "We were chief engineers on cable television at five stadiums of 12, and ensured functioning of the equipment at the others", – the director of the company Nikolay Milovanov told RIA Tomsk. He worked in Nizhny Novgorod.

According to him, the main task which the FIFA sets for speakers at stadium, – to provide the press with "picture" in real time (that those in turn could do qualitative reports for the whole world).

Jobs of commentators on a media tribune are located so that the football field is perfectly visible from there, and still everyone has one and even two monitors – to watch repetitions, statistics, close ups and broadcastings from other stadiums and press conferences.

But transfer of a SDI signal (that is not compressed format of high definition) from the telespeaker on screens of commentators always went with an essential delay – 2-3 seconds. And here, for example, situation: operator of broadcasting, using a pause in a game (let's say there is a preparation for a penalty), gives repetition of a moment. But instantly switches to a game as soon as the pause in it comes to an end.

In the same second a football player scores a goal, and the commentator still parses the replay on the screen because sees it with a three-second delay … As the staff of Elecard working at stadiums remember, many commentators just stacked monitors on a table not to distract at the beginning of the championship. To the second game news that monitors work synchronously with a match has promptly expatiated on the shop, and already nobody overturned them.

Inexpensive solution

"We were engaged in broadcasting exactly in stadiums. Roughly speaking, we were given eight TV channels, we had to remove a signal, code (to compress) it and to transfer further to consumers at stadium", – Milovanov tells.

Theoretically the cables could be held on to each commentator, it was made earlier (for example, at the Olympic Games in Sochi). But the SDI monitor is expensive in comparison with the ordinary TV, considering that there were many times more of commentators  in the World Cup, than at the same Olympic Games (500 worked at the WC final in Luzhniki, for example). Expenses would go beyond the budget of broadcasting.

"Therefore organizers have chosen the decision based on transfer through cable digital television, but with the minimum delay. All process of delivery occupies about 300 milliseconds (0,3 seconds). Use of our decision allowed to reduce much costs of broadcasting", – Milovanov says.

Also he emphasizes: "For the first time in the world telecommunication Russian technologies were applied in such quality and scale. Thanks to federal support at various levels (it is a work in a technology development zone, and support of administration of the Tomsk region, and grants of the Bortnik's Foundation), we could make new codecs and develop competitive technology".

"Come to Qatar!"

"Everything already worked ideally to the championship quarterfinal, but it was necessary to run in two weeks prior to the competitions and the first one and a half weeks of matches. It is just built networks, the equipment behaves differently at each stadium. There are five minutes for correction of any situation, otherwise – penalties and trial with FIFA", – Milovanov tells.

There were, for example, situations when someone has accidentally switched off power on a media tribune. Or – an engineer comes to the post before matches, and none of TVs work …

"You begin to check – there is no signal. Thanks to the system of monitoring you find that the problem in network can be in such room where, perhaps, electricians have unintentionally  turned off the switch. The next challenge is to find the keys. Sometime we just tried a key … I wrote then in the report: I won't tell how I have opened this door, but power supply of amplifiers of network at the stadium was restored", – the director of Elecard smiles.

In general, he considers, from the technical point of view the team of organizers worked excellently: "Yes, there were disagreements against which all of us together fought, but the main thing is that people worked for their names, and the name of the countries. And at the end they were highly appreciated by one of heads of technical broadcasting of FIFA: "Delivery and service were outstanding from the beginning to the end. Pack things and come to Qatar (the country of holding of the FIFA World Cup – 2022 – Ed.)!"