François Persiaux, Head of Global Contribution France, said, “The Orange Africa Cup of Nations 2015, EQUATORIAL GUINEA 2015, presented some very specific – and sizeable – challenges. For instance, the venue was finally switched to Equatorial Guinea as the host country as late as the end of November last year. This presented a massive logistical challenge, one that we rose to.”
Globecast gathered a highly experienced team from its staff and began the process of configuring and shipping seven HD flyaway uplink kits – there was a total of 4.5 tons of equipment – then had to organise local logistics and seven different satellites for contribution and distribution. The situation was made more complex by the fact that the capital of the country – Malabo, to where all the equipment had to be shipped – is a 45-min flight from the mainland.
Globecast supplied uplinks and contribution – main and backup feeds – from the four stadium locations for its customer, sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE AFRICA. Distribution was global to 51 broadcasters, with Globecast supplying a field team of engineers and a coordination manager in Africa as well as a MCR in Paris with a dedicated engineer and coordinator for each match. There was also a supervisor for worldwide distribution plus remote live monitoring for each downlink on every satellite. Additional French commentary was added in the Paris MCR, giving a total of eight language broadcasts.
Persiaux said, “This was clearly a very big project carried out in a very short space of time. Having shipped and set up all the equipment, we produced 170 hours of live HD transmission using four C-Band and three Ku-band satellites. This was the biggest single flyway operation managed by our Paris office using skills from across the company. We are very proud to have succeeded so well.”