It is more than 60 years since the Berlin Olympics became the first Games to be televised.
Since then the Olympics have become the biggest event on television and networks around the world pay astronomical sums for the rights to televise them.
More people will watch the Sydney Games on television than ever before.
More than 4 billion viewers are expected to watch the Sydney 2000 games and it has taken several years to prepare the sophisticated International Broadcast Centre (IBC) that will make it all possible.
The IBC is equipped with 75,000 square metres of the latest broadcasting equipment. That, according to Telstra, is enough high tech gear to cover 10 Australian Grand Prix car races at one time.
The IBC will cater for 15,000 broadcast media covering the Games and will be used to televise more than 3400 hours of live action. It will be the central point for live television and radio coverage from 39 games venues, some of them more than 3000 kilometres apart. Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane will all host events.
Olympic soccer matches and telecasts of the games will be beamed direct to the IBC before being sent throughout Australia and the rest of the world. The centre will host 280 video and about 3000 audio links - more than 11 times the number used for the 1998 World Cup soccer.
Commentators from dozens of countries speaking numerous languages will be made to look knowledgeable about athletes they may never before have heard of, through IBM INFO data system that will provide instant biographical information on every competitor.
The commentary and pictures will be fed to the world through satellite earth stations in Sydney and Perth which will beam them up to 11 satellites and for the first time will offer high definition television (HDTV) transmission from Australia.
From Perth the telecasts also will be sent out through a global network of fibre optic submarine cable capable of handling 1000 broadcast quality television channels per second.
Japan will take the HDTV broadcasts under a deal between Telstra and several major Japanese networks including NHK, Nippon TV, Tokyo Broadcasting System, TV Asahi, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo.
The Japanese Consortium will use more than 10 video channels, including one for HDTV broadcasting, to reach an estimated 100 million viewers across Japan.
Telstra has also reached agreements for international broadcast transmission with a number of Asia-Pacific rights holding broadcasters to provide Olympic coverage to Korea, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong as well as to Europe and North America.
As well as broadcasting to the outside world, the IBC will provide a constant feed to 60 cable TV channels servicing a 40-kilometre radius around the main Olympic arenas and into the Athletes Village. The data network feeding the IBC will be monitored 24 hours a day by a staff of 130 operating from the Technology Command Centre (TCC), SOCOG's (Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games) communications nerve centre
Network construction is based on SDH technology and self-healing ring topology. The automatic, self-correcting 'loop' technology avoids signal loss and ensures every second of action is captured for TV and radio audiences around the globe.
Each Olympic venue has at least two different SDH cable connections to the IBC. If one should have a problem, the other will carry the image to the watching audience.
Fibre Optic cable has been used to connect all of the 212 audio commentary positions in the main stadium. That's more than one commentary position per competing nation.
While the IBC will handle the television coverage, it is not the main press centre.
That is in another building, which also is the official location of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) daily press briefing. The Main Press Centre is the size of about eight football or hockey fields.
During the Games, it will accommodate 10,000 people. That's roughly one press representative per Olympic athlete.
It is estimated that more than 50,000 accredited and non-accredited media will cover Sydney 2000, making these the most reported Olympics in history.
September 11, 2000
