Bexel Broadcast Services, which has been involved with the Olympics going back to 1984 in Los Angeles, will support BOB, NBC Olympics, NBC News, and others.

"We're supporting them with a number of different items, a couple of small flypacks, a couple of Sony 3300 Super Mos, and a number of long lenses," says Craig Schiller, VP/GM of Live Event and Field Production. "We're also supporting the remote camera venders with a number of wide angle lenses."

The new offering from Bexel is the Hercules flypack and NBC Olympics will use it for the aquatic events.

"Over the years we've heard a lot of comments about flypacks and the ergonomics of flypacks with regards to the operating positions, being in front of shipping cases, not having proper consoles for operating positions," explains Schiller. "So we've taken that into account and have come up with something that we feel is quite unique. We have combined a number of racks into what we're calling dual racks. And we're doing a lot of internal wiring and including some operating positions in what we're calling modules."

Hercules has many key components including the Sony MVS-8000G HD Switcher with individual keyer resizers and internal format converters so it is future-proofed to support 1080-line progressive-scan high definition (HD) production in the future.

"It lives at the heart of the new flypack system," says Schiller, "And with the new interface with EVS this will give users' access to the flagship EVS XT [2], one of the fastest, most flexible and reliable HD video servers in the world."

Other components include the Pesa Cheetah multi-format 128x256 video router, Pesa DRS DA routing 256x256 AES, 256x256 analog audio, and Evertz MVP multi-viewers. For audio demands, Hercules has a Calrec Alpha Bluefin HD audio mixing console at its core, providing ease in 5.1 Surround Sound mixing and routing.

"We take pride in the fact that it is a light-weight system, about 175 boxes, and weighs about 22,000 lbs, explains Schiller. "That sounds like a lot but we have very few CRT monitors in the system."

Instead 24 NEC 40-inch bezel monitors are at the core of the multi-viewer system. "They actually ship in the modules and when they get to location, the LCDs flip up, and everything's already wired," explains Schiller.