London's Olympic Stadium was the jewel of the city during the 2012 Olympic Games. It only made sense that every broadcaster wanted to have the stadium, or other elements of Olympic Park, as the Olympic view behind their anchors during their coverage of the 30th Olympiad.
Al Jazeera's 24-story Olympic studio.
Studio space around the stadium was limited, however, so broadcasters began looking for alternative solutions.
The BBC, for example, leased the roof and 22nd floor of a local office building, and Al Jazeera built a studio on top of a 24-story apartment building because "they liked the view."
After finding the perfect location, broadcasters also needed to control the brightness of the exterior light so that their viewers could see the Olympic view out the window.
Many studios turned to RoscoVIEW®, a product specifically engineered to control the exposure in windows using a two-part system. Part 1 is a rigid RoscoVIEW Panel that is installed onto the window. Part 2 is a corresponding RoscoVIEW Camera Filter that is fitted onto the camera.
Rotating the camera filter causes it to cross-polarize with the panel in the window. The cross-polarization "dims" the light that is seen outside the window. The RoscoVIEW helps studios keep their windows from "blowing out." With RoscoVIEW, broadcasters have instantaneous control over the brightness of their windows so that they can share the view outside their windows with their viewers.
Norway's NRK Olympic studio with RoscoVIEW installed in the windows.
The best example of RoscoVIEW at the London games was Norway's NRK broadcast studio. Built on top of scaffolding that rose over four stories high, the studio featured 13 windows with RoscoVIEW panels. In addition, the studio also had three cameras that were outfitted with RoscoVIEW Camera Filters and RoscoVIEW Camera Filter Rotators.
NRK Norway's scaffold-top studio.
NRK had sent a skeleton crew to operate the studio, opting to control most of the lighting, sound - and yes, even the RoscoVIEW - from the studio in Norway. The RoscoVIEW GUI (Graphic User Interface) allowed the control room to network with the RoscoVIEW Camera Filter Rotators. This enabled the crew in Norway to rotate the filters and control the brightness of the windows in the studio from over 1,000 miles away!
Then there was the Olympic Broadcast Services TV Tower - a series of 10 studios manufactured out of sea-freight containers!
The OBS TV Tower was comprised of 104, 40’ sea containers. The structure rose nine sea container-stories high, with the 10 broadcast studios positioned on the top two "floors."
Each studio inside the OBS Tower was two containers wide and featured windows that looked out onto London's Olympic Park. Each of the broadcasters that leased those studios were left to their own devices as to how they would address the brightness coming through the windows. Four of the ten studios in the tower chose RoscoVIEW to allow their viewers to see the Olympic view in the background.
Just as the Olympics provide athletes a chance to show the world their abilities, they also give us a reason to show off the capabilities of RoscoVIEW every two-years. If you'd like to learn more about RoscoVIEW, please visit: www.rosco.com/roscoview.
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