IBC 2021

IBC2021 Innovation Awards / IBC Special Award

Cobalt Digital proudly provided products and participated in NBCUniversal's solution for the Tokyo Olympic Games. We're grateful to NBCUniversal for sharing their Special Award recognition with us. Below is an excerpt from the official IBC2021 Innovation Awards press release. 

IBC2021 chose to present a special award to NBCUniversal for its technical work around bringing the Tokyo Olympic Games to its audience and offering them the chance to enjoy live action in Ultra HD: 4k resolution, high dynamic range colour and Dolby Atmos sound. While production processes for recorded, scripted content in Ultra HD are now well established, NBCUniversal has led the way in developing the necessary technology for single-stream production workflows in sport.

NBCUniversal covered the whole content pipeline, from acquisition and management of 4k content in the HLG colour space to a new version of its Skypath distribution system, ensuring the Ultra HD versions were made available to more than 200 local TV stations across the USA. This ensured that the full 4k, HDR, Dolby Atmos Ultra HD experience was available to 70% of the country.

David Mazza, CTO of NBC Sports Group and Olympics and Clarence Hau, SVP of NBCUniversal Operations & Technology, said, “We are honoured to be recognised by IBC with this prestigious award. The Tokyo Games culminated years of live HDR and Atmos production and distribution development, leading to today’s refined techniques. “We are grateful to IBC for recognising this achievement by the technical teams across NBC Sports and Operations & Technology.”