In Broadcast - April 2021 - 43

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 11 - Issue 4 | April 2021

InStudio

The Collectv helps F1: Drive
to Survive make The Grid

For the third season of Netflix's hit F1 documentary, The Collectv was once more in charge
of data wrangling at racetracks around the world...

he Collectv, the Emmy awardwinning
broadcast
solutions
and workflows consultancy, has
announced its ongoing involvement in
the production process of Netflix's flyon-the-pitwall F1 documentary series
Formula One: Drive to Survive. The
third season of the Box to Box Films
production, covering the dramatic
events of the 2020 Grand Prix calendar,
aired on Netflix from March 19.
The Collectv has been involved with
Formula One since 2012, providing
services to both Sky Sports and
Whisper for Channel 4. It has been
involved with Formula One: Drive to
Survive from the first season and plays
a vital role in ensuring all data from
Box to Box's UHD camera crews is
safely and securely ingested, backed
up, transcoded, and sent on to post
production.
Box to Box deploys anywhere
between six to nine 4K camera crews
at each race, which can generate in
turn anywhere between 7TB to 12TB
of data between them over the course
of the race weekend. The F1 Broadcast
Compound shuts down rapidly after
the main race has concluded and gets
packed away to move onto the next
race in a demanding schedule, so The
Collectv has built special systems
to handle the throughput in the
timeframe required and that adhere
strictly to Netflix's backup criteria.
LTO and near-line storage is used onsite, and one or two types of transport
drive, typically G-Technology or Lacie
are maintained. Material is transcoded
into DNxHD 36 before being sent on
drives to The Farm in London for post
production (though as the production

schedule ramped up towards the end
of the 2020 season this was switched
to a direct 10GbE connection).
Taking up two racks in Box to Box's
production area, The Collectv's system
was initially based on rack-mounted
Dell 7920 workstations, but has
recently been re-engineered around
HP Z2s to take advantage of their
smaller form factor.
" The Z2s give us the power we need
for transcoding the material before
the compound is shut down and
packed up for the next race, " explains
Chris Sarson, MD and co-owner at
The Collectv. " They also allow us to
transport the equipment in the hold
in three large Peli cases rather than
having to go cargo all the time, which
gives us that much more flexibility
when it comes to following the races
around the world. "
Flexibility was a key attribute last
year too. The Collectv team was
already out in Australia along with
the entire rest of the F1 paddock
last March for the start of the 2020
season when it was cancelled at the
last minute due to the pandemic. And
while racing did finally commence for

what was Formula One's 70th season
in Austria in July, the 17 races that
made up the 2020 calendar were very
different from normal and The Collectv
had to be extremely responsive to a
schedule that evolved as the season
developed.
" Our new equipment means that
we can be based at the circuit and we
can also be based out of a hotel room
if need be, which is an important
consideration in this era of biosecure
production, " says Sarson. " Also, for the
last three races last season we added
somebody on via a remote connection.
As always, we had a person on the
ground who was getting those cards,
putting them in the card readers,
and copying those onto machines.
Then when they went off shift, we
could have someone back at base
transcoding, copying those files off
the drives ready to be delivered to The
Farm for post. It's a big saving both
in production costs and in efficiencies
and is something we're looking to do
more in the future. "
While it may have been the shortest
for many years, the 2020 F1 season
was also one of the most dramatic

both on and off the track and featured
Lewis Hamilton's historic seventh
world title, maiden wins for Pierre
Gasly and Sergio Perez, Sebastian
Vettel's departure from Ferrari, F1's
response to the BLM protests, and
much more.
" People have started to realise over
recent years just how crucial backups are, and the new media players
all have extremely rigorous criteria
in place to ensure no data ever gets
lost, " says Sarson. " Formula One: Drive
to Survive is famous for those candid,
offguard moments that provide real
insight into the people behind one of
the most-watched sports on Earth,
and we're delighted to play our part in
ensuring those always make it safely
and surely from the camera to the
edit. "
" The Collectv has been an invaluable
partner on Formula One: Drive to
Survive from Day 1. Their industry
leading technical knowledge, coupled
with a desire to innovate has ensured
they are central to our media
management for this series, and
several of our other titles " says Tom
Rogers, Executive in Charge of Post
Production for Box to Box Films. " The
2020 season tested their innovation to
the maximum, and The Collectv proved
once again why we continue to partner
with them. They adapted our media
management processes, workflow
and infrastructure to ensure we could
operate as seamlessly as possible
within the parameters of our COVID
secure production plan. "

Formula One: Drive to Survive
available now on Netflix.

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In Broadcast - April 2021

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