Global Television delivers 2010 Commonwealth Games International Broadcast Centre

In October, 2009, Global Television won a world wide tender to design, install and operate the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) for the XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi, India.

The IBC is the hub for all Commonwealth Games broadcasting activity, handling the sporting venues’ incoming television pictures and sound on behalf of the host broadcaster, distributing that footage to international rights holders and managing rights holders’ outgoing transmissions.

This ambitious project marked the first time in Commonwealth Games history that the event had been broadcast in High Definition digital, which also marked a critical milestone for Indian television.

Global was selected from a tough international field after an intensive three-month evaluation period and won the bid thanks to the company’s lengthy experience: Global’s track record in providing complex technical broadcast requirements for major international events is well established. Global delivered the IBC technical build for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and brought the same team together for Delhi 2010, also working with an on-the-ground Indian partner, Shaf Broadcast, on the Delhi Games IBC.

Global also provided IBC requirements for the 2007 FINA World Championships (swimming), World Youth Day 2008 and the 2000 Paralympic Games Sydney.

For Delhi, Global pre-built the IBC technical requirements in Australia and air-lifted the pre-tested setup to Delhi for installation and technical handover. Rights-holder broadcasters began taking possession of their customised areas within the IBC about a month before the Games, with some transmitting live-to-air from the venue in the week ahead of the Opening Ceremony.

Over the 12 days of competition Global’s IBC technical set-up and operation worked faultlessly 24 hours/day, servicing both the host broadcaster and rights holders with studio, play-out and on-air facilities. More than 1,500 broadcast professionals were based at the IBC.

Occupying 8,000 square meters, more than 150 kilometres of cable was installed into the IBC, which was manned by 104 technical and 100 building support personnel supplied by Global Television.

1361 High Definition hours of competition, ceremonies and highlights were recorded onto the digital archive, with 899 HDCAM tapes delivered to the Commonwealth Games Federation for the permanent archives.