While BCE covers and broadcasts the sessions from the Luxembourg Parliament (Chamber TV) for many years, the exceptional measures from the actual sanitary crisis have made the infrastructure of the sessions unusable.

In order to follow the security measures, the Parliament moved to the Cercle Cité, a conference and event centre with enough room to follow the two meters distance between each deputy as well as between the production team members.

To do so BCE installed a complete conference and TV production platform allowing the live transmission of the Parliament sessions. Gathering its multiple expertise, namely in production services, mobile production platforms and system integration, BCE installed a 70 tables conference microphone system, with voting system for laws and amendments statements. BCE also installed a closed cabin in the main room for the Parliament spokesperson to comment the sessions.

“Even with a tight schedule and strict security measures, BCE managed to install the complete production and transmission infrastructure in less than 5 days. The organization was done through video conference meetings and the on-site installation was a success.” Comments Sven Weisen, Engineering & System Integration Director at BCE.

On the production side, BCE equipped the Parliament with seven 4K remote cameras which are controlled by BCE’s StudioTalk, an all-in-one production solution, with multi cameras and feeds control, content management, channel branding and broadcast system. BCE ensured the standard lighting of the room with the addition of helium filled light balloons and HMI Spots for lighting the scene.

With StudioTalk, BCE can control all the remote cameras, synchronize the Chamber TV branding with the sessions and ensure the transmission of the program. Linked to BCE headquarters via fibre, the sessions are broadcast through the usual dedicated Chamber TV channel, live streamed on the Internet, and transmitted on Radio. The sessions are also available for replay on the Parliament website.

In addition, the sessions are transmitted to the Parliament building, allowing the in-house services to carry on working on location, avoiding the move of all the entity services to the new production location.

“BCE had installed a complete production platform with a dedicated control room at the Parliament building in 2018. Today, StudioTalk allows us to continue to produce the sessions at the new location despite the Covid-19 crisis. In these complex times, it is paramount to continue to inform the country and we are proud to bring this project to fulfilment.” Concludes Xavier Thillen, Head of Production & Digital Media Operations at BCE.