CENTERFOLD

SCARLET Video Network Eye-Hand Coordination

The crack of the starting gun sets off sprinters in an Olympic relay race. At that same second, a reporter in an Olympic press center tunes to a track-and-field channel and watch es the race live, then accesses cycling results and hears a gymnast comment on her gold-medal performance. This is one chain reaction in the Olympic games' new video and data distribution network.

Synchronous Communications Accessing Live Event Television (SCARLET) is a closed-circuit, real-time cable television network created by BellSouth, Scientific-Atlanta and Panasonic to help accredited media provide more comprehensive coverage of the events at the 1996 Centennial Olympic games in Atlanta. SCARLET eliminates the need for local production facilities, allows broadcasters to edit their transmissions without signal degradation and results in estimated savings of nearly $20 million for NBC, the U.S. broadcast rights holder. The SCARLET network will link 26 competition venues, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games' International Broadcast Center (IBC) and five other selected non-competition venues, placing it among the largest private t elecommunications networks ever created. "A typi cal cable company has three to four cable hubs or headends to d eliver this kind of service to a city," explains Emmet O'Donnell, project director of Scientific-Atlanta's broadband network. "We are providing 10 hubs just for the Olympic games."

Through SCARLET, digital, CATV-quality television and CD-quality voice and computer signals will be transmitted simultaneously. The network is the largest MPEG-2 (international standard used to broadcast digital video) digital broadcast service ever developed. Within the IBC, Scientific-Atlanta equipment digitally encodes, compresses and sends each venue up to 48 channels of video and audio via the BellSouth Synchronous Optical Network. Forty world feeds are produced--the Atlanta Olympic Broadcasters' final product.

The SCARLET network includes the Press Data System (PDS), a data network that displays real-time results and starting lineups on television. The PDS connects to an IBM Token-Ring results network through a client, th e Information Systems Processor. Scientific-Atlanta 8600X home commu nications terminals permit viewers at venues and press centers to select channels of results from IBM, athletic event schedules, instructions for volunteers, safety and weather bulletins, live coverage and digital text-based information.

From the tally of medals to the smile on a champion's face, SCARLET brings Olympic action to the world in seconds.



February 13, 1996