The Olympics are in many cases, multiple Superbowls or World Cup events being staged at the same time. What does it take to produce all this?
Well, some stats being passed around on the production reveal it’s a huge undertaking, and I’m sure these stats don’t account for everything because those crews that come in always have to retrofit the stuff built out to “make it work right.”
It takes a lot of people power and equipment to produce the 835 hours of glitzy television coverage you’ll see in the coming 16 days. While setting up for the big event, our NBC brethren compiled an impressive list of the sheer numbers involved in creating such a monumental 16-day broadcast.
900,000 gigabytes of HD video storage
400,000 feet of video cable
230,000 feet of audio cable (43 miles)
155,980 meals served in 16 days
79,707 square feet compound space at 19 venues
68,286 cups of coffee and tea
50,000 feet of triax cable
32 communication nodes
13,000 Two Way Radios
46,912 room nights in 15 hotels and 97 apartments
22,000 donuts
18,730 pounds of pasta ordered for the NBC commissary
15,000 blank videotapes
10,500 feet of fiber cable
10,000 archived video tapes
6,890 sets of Olympics schwag for the crew
2,500 color video monitors
2,168 NBC Olympic staff in Vancouver
835 hours of planned television coverage
800 hours of HD broadcast coverage at the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008
416 total hours of NBC coverage of the Torino Olympics, the previous record
385 laptop computers
200 video recorders and 100 video servers
127 printers
110 NBC cameras
51 HD video servers
28 NBC edit rooms
26 Semi trucks hauling equipment
5 Mobile units
1 Fixed-wing aircraft
1 helicopter ( I thought there is more..)
1st all-HD Olympic Winter Games
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