From an Austrian perspective, the Alpine World Ski Championships 2013 were the highlight of the sporting year 2013. Schladming and the entire state of Styria was Austria’s window to the sporting world from 4 to 17 February.  Ski stars from 70 countries performed in 11 exciting and fair competitions to win one of the 33 medals.

Spectacular fireworks and impressive performances were the themes of the opening ceremony on January 8th in the Ruhpolding Championspark. Following the biathlon World Championships last year, the world again was watching the Biathlon in the Chiemgau Arena for five days. Tora Berger, Miriam Gössner and Martin Fourcade led the winner's parade in Ruhpolding. Berger anchored the winning women's relay team and then dominated the mass start on Sunday. In between, Gössner captured the fan's hearts by running away with the sprint. Then there was Fourcade; he anchored the relay, and flew to wins in the sprint and mass start. Norway and France with a bit of Germany thrown in was how the week went.

Under commission from the Kazakhstan government and in partnership with the Istanbul-based system-integrator Akfa Technology, ARRI Lighting Solutions has designed and equipped the new Astana Media Center (AMC), a state-of-the-art, 75,500m² media complex in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital. As a result, the AMC has become one of the most advanced production facilities in the region, offering sophisticated studios and lighting tools, and enabling high-quality content creation for national and syndicated distribution.

Introduction
Next to its broadcasting centre in Stuttgart, SWR built a new television studio complex with four production studios as a substitute for the “Villa Berg” studios, in operation since 1964. The new studios were completed in late 2011.

Customer profile: Studios A/S is a leading full service facility provider in Denmark. Its home to TV shows such as Strictly come dancing, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Allstars, Luxury Trap, MasterChef and many more.

The first FIFA World Cup™ to be held in South America since 1978, the 20th in total, will take place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014. It will be the second time Brazil has hosted the event and the first time consecutive tournaments have been played outside of Europe. The project will offer a distinct logistical challenge, given the size of the country in comparison to the previous FIFA World Cups™ to which HBS has been assigned as host broadcaster.

EPC required a system that could be built and tested within three weeks of the initial contract agreement, ready for use at the Vodafone Rally de Portugal, with editors and producers fully trained in this time. The ability to integrate GoPro files was also a key consideration for EPC when selecting a system as a lot of footage comes directly from GoPro cameras fitted in the rally cars themselves. And finally, the system had to have easy handling of HD material and quick time-to-air as EPC would be shooting the season’s programming entirely in HD with a very short turnaround time between rally heats. Quantel’s Enterprise sQ fast-turnaround production system was selected as the winning tender, successfully meeting EPC’s key criteria.

Together MCS, MCR LFH Thüringen, RT Software Ltd., and Chyron GmbH made it possible for the daily newscast Thüringen MDR to successfully go on air with a new Virtual Reality set on the 1st of June 2012. An overview of the studio technology involved and the operation of the VR-System is detailed in this case study.

In the mid-‘70s, Live Sound became Audio-Technica’s passion. But it was a long, hard journey from the early days of its performance microphones 30 years ago to the widespread use of Audio-Technica’s state-of-the-art wireless mics on concert stages across the various genres of the music industry today. The earliest Live Sound line targeted performing musicians looking for a great value in an affordable microphone for vocals and instruments. But like other Audio-Technica users, they often got much, much more.

On 24 December 2009 ANO Sports Broadcasting (Panorama) was founded as an autonomous non-profit organisation by OJSC Channel One, FGUP VGTRK, OJSC NTV-PLUS and the RIA Novosti news agency with the mission to provide a national HDTV signal of the XXII Winter Olympic Games and the XI Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi in 2014, as well as an international HDTV signal of the XXVII World Summer University Games in Kazan in 2013.

Out once again on tour with Muse, lighting designer Oli Metcalfe is the first LD to use the new High End Systems Hog 4 control system. During a recent string of shows in the UK and Europe, Metcalfe had the opportunity to swap out his Full Boar console for the new Hog 4 desk. Metcalfe's design is already turning heads for its creative implementation of video surfaces across a giant articulating pyramid that symbolizes the system of power and global politics; his approach to networking and control is similarly cutting-edge.

The technology and ingenuity of broadcasters with distribution rights to the 2012 Olympics were thoroughly tested in an effort to serve a wider viewing audience than ever before, measured both geographically and by sheer audience numbers. Following extensive evaluations to find the best encoding platforms for both live and on-demand video streaming, the BBC, CTV, Terra, NHK and Eurosport all selected Elemental video processing solutions to support coverage of the 2012 Olympics.

SPEED is America’s premier cable television network dedicated to motor sports and the passion for everything automotive. From racing to restoration, motorcycles to movies, autos to auctions, Speed delivers quality programming from the track to the garage. Speed is the home to Nascar on Speed, Formula One racing and popular shows like “The Speed Report,” and “Wind Tunnel.” Speed reaches more than 78 million homes in North America and has a strong following on speedtv.com. Speed also provides content for interactive TV, broadband, video on demand, and mobile devices.

Studio lighting has recently been placed under the environmental spotlight as the industry becomes increasingly conscious of its carbon footprint. Many broadcasters still working with legacy studio lighting find that, not only does it cost them more financially, but it also poses a bigger risk to the environment due to the substantially higher levels of energy consumption required.

Sky Deutschland has added the popular Sky Sports News 24 channel to its extensive line-up. More than three million subscribers across the Sky Deutschland region in Germany, Austria and Switzerland can now tune in to the dedicated sports channel for 19 hours a day.