SVG Honors HBS, OBS at Fifth Annual IBC Sport Reception

On Saturday night, SVG hosted more than 200 sports industry professionals at its annual IBC Sport Reception in Amsterdam to salute the 2010 achievements of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) and Host Broadcast Services (HBS). These two companies, respectively, were directly responsible for two groundbreaking 2010 productions, the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. Manolo Romero, CEO of OBS, was on hand to accept the award for the Olympic production, while Francis Tellier, CEO of HBS, accepted the award for the World Cup broadcast.

Francis Tellier of HBS (left) and Manolo Romero of OBS (right) accepted the SVG Sport Technology Awards at IBC on behalf of their organizations.

Romero, who Tellier regarded as the “godfather of sports broadcasting,” accepted his award first. Acknowledging the hard work of all of his colleagues, as well as the athletes in Vancouver, Romero was proud that the first all-HD Winter Olympic Games proved worthy of recognition from both SVG and the larger sports community. He noted, however, that attendees should stay tuned for even more production advancements at Olympic Games to come, beginning with London in 2012.

Tellier was then honored for HBS’ production of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, including the 25 matches that HBS broadcast in 3D. Tellier noted that none of the success his company had would have been possible without the cooperation of FIFA, as well as the athletes. He also saluted Romero, in particular, for paving the way for the host broadcast system that is currently in place. Without a designated host broadcaster, Tellier explained, creating the type of coverage that HBS was able to provide at this year’s World Cup would have been impossible.

“The achievements of both of these companies were remarkable for their production quality, but also for the commitment that they made to these productions years ago,” Ken Kerschbaumer, SVG editorial director, explained during the ceremony. “The advanced tapeless and 3D workflows that they were able to use this year paved the way for all of the technologies that you see today on the IBC show floor, but OBS and HBS committed to those technologies three and four years ago, when they were quite nascent. Tonight, SVG salutes the leap that they took in doing so.”

SVG’s fifth annual IBC Sport Reception was sponsored by SOS Global Express, Bexel, and Grass Valley.

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