Industry News

Headline	Telecast Fiber Optics Go The Distance For National Coverage Of NHL Winter Classic
Article	Suite of Telecast Video Transport Systems Enables 500-Yard Fiber Link between Fenway Park and OB Vehicles to Deliver High-Quality Live Shots When the Boston Bruins hosted the Philadelphia Flyers for the 2010 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic® on New Year's Day, a suite of advanced fiber optic transport solutions from Telecast Fiber Systems was instrumental in bringing the action home to television viewers. The Telecast gear enabled a seamless fiber optic link for delivering high-quality live video feeds to an offsite location for outside broadcast (OB) vehicles, 500 yards from the Fenway Park venue. The NHL Winter Classic was televised by NBC and carried by numerous other national and local media outlets. Staging a hockey game in a historic baseball field created a unique logistical challenge for the broadcasters, since the area just outside the stadium usually designated for broadcast trucks was occupied by ice-making equipment. Besides adding an additional 500 yards to the distance from Fenway's cross-connect A/V access point, the offsite truck location was separated from the stadium by busy Van Ness Street. Thistle and Ed Jacobs, president of Interstate Rentals, another production equipment provider, worked together to devise a solution using lightweight fiber optic tactical cable to provide an overhead connection between the OB trucks and the cross-connect point inside Fenway. Telecast's DiamondBack II™ and Adder II™ systems were used for SD video and analog audio transport to the truck compound. In addition, Telecast's Viper II™ and Rattler™ modular transmit/receive units provided HD/SDI video capabilities as required. NBC, ESPN, Comcast, and several local Boston and Philadelphia stations all took advantage of the fiber link to access live shots from the game.
Company	Telecast Fiber Optics
Date Published	3/2/2010