Linking professionals since 2009

Welcome to Broadcast Rental

For over a decade Broadcast Rental delivers outstanding turnkey solutions, MCR, Fly Packs, RF HD/UHD transmissions and state of the art boxhire equipment.

Full-service rental house and RF wireless specialist

Specialized in high-end broadcast equipment

Equipment hire

Solutions available for any HD or UHD live broadcast you can imagine

Wireless broadcast

Temporary and fixed connectivity solutions worldwide

Fibre & IP connectivity

Specialized workflows for the biggest live events

Live events

Vacature project manager Operations, Travel & Support

Week van: Rick Verwaal

Two years after the planned date, the Invictus Games were held for the fifth time. Due to COVID the 2020 edition was delayed twice, while the plans for recording were waiting on the shelf. Although Broadcast Rental has a great deal of experience with large-scale international sports events and huge productions with a lot of RF’s, this event presented a new challenge.
‘First off, the Invictus Games are more about the athletes than about their performance’, explained Frank Steenbeek, Broadcast Rental’s CEO. ‘Unlike, for instance, the Paralympics, this event is about encouraging recovery through sports and meeting others who share the same experiences, and their families. Focus lies on the journey of the athletes, and that is usually a bigger feat even than how they perform on the field. It is also the reason why recording this event is something else. The distance is greater and less in your face.

RF Cloud at Zuiderpark

As Chief Operating Officer (COO), he calls himself “a bit of a jack-of-all-trades”, especially when it comes to the global car racing spectacle where Broadcast Rental has such a strong presence. “I make sure everyone is able to do their job with the right tools,” says Steenbeek, who has been with the company since 2017. “I needed a little time to master the expertise we have – there is a huge technological development and it can be tricky, especially when it comes to wireless – but at some point our Formula 1 operation was pretty transparent, so I could get focus on the frequency issue.”

That part of Steenbeek’s job is as crucial as it is, perhaps, underestimated. “At the beginning of the year, I create a framework with agreements that we made about who goes where and what frequencies we use where. Our tower of strength, Laura de Leeuw, then organises all the flights, hotels and local car rental. After that we just need to stay on top of new developments. The operation then basically runs itself. It may sound a bit arrogant, but we rarely have any issues with our systems, because we are deeply embedded in the FOM organisation (Formula One Management, the Formula One Group’s operational organisation that manages broadcasting rights, red.) and are able to switch gears very quickly. It also helps that Jeroen Klaver and Bastiaan Woering, our dedicated Formula 1 crew, are present at each race and are able to manage or solve everything by themselves.”

Well-oiled machine in the Formula 1

Green Room Interviews
The question the NPO’s innovative task force posed: What if the performers cannot come to Rotterdam, how will we realize a Song Contest? After all, it is not just about the recordings of the performances that are broadcast, you also want to talk to the performers to get the desired interaction. Julien Hommes, Technical Producer at Broadcast Rental says: ‘We were looking for an innovative on-line solution that would make the Green Room interviews fit in with the broadcast seamlessly.’

Remote Challenge
A way had to be found to enable countries that could not attend in Rotterdam, or had to quarantine in their hotel rooms, to still take part in the show, by a means of a remote on-line solution with broadcasting quality. Preferably not via the Eurovision network and its outrageously expensive satellite connections, which requires manpower, lots of technology and extensive planning. Rapid anticipation was another requirement, in the event that one of the participating countries would be infected with the Coronavirus just before the show. 

Speed, quality and security were the key words. ‘For those cross talks, all known solutions were a no-go because of low latency issues. Also, those solutions were simply not practical. To realize such a system for 26 countries, plus the necessary explanations takes a lot of effort. We also had to have built-in redundancy, and we could not use a public server for security reasons. We therefore preferred our own infrastructure, so we could monitor everything.’
Another issue was user convenience. It was important that the contestants could easily set up video and audio at home or in their hotel rooms without the input of an external technician.

Remote Green Rooms

The 2020 Dakar Rally was the 42nd edition of the event and the first edition held in Saudi Arabia. The event started in Jeddah on 5 January and finished in Al-Qiddiya on 17 January, after 12 stages of competition.

When Fox Sports Latin Amerika asked Geert Paul Slee, director and founder of Broadcast Rental, to supply technical facilities for live broadcasts from Dakar, he didn’t think twice. Not because it would be a routine job for Broadcast Rental, but because it was one of the few international sports events where the company had not yet earned its spurs. Having delivered the live broadcasts for Fox Sports LA during the first weeks of January, Broadcast Rental can now add the Dakar to its tally.

The idea: a self-supporting media facility with three cameras, which would transmit high quality content to Buenos Aires every day from any conceivable place in the desert. Plus a live one hour magazine straight to TV sets in Latin America. Broadcast Rental purchased a Volkswagen Crafter and started building the system.

In just two weeks the 4×4 was rigged up into a small desert-proof OB Van. A wall was placed to divide the cargo space into two compartments: the production space and room for storage.

The van not only had to carry the equipment for broadcasting and recording, but loads of spare car parts, sleeping bags, provisions and emergency supplies as well. Add to that an aggregate and the uplink system. For the uplink from Saudi Arabia to MCR in Hilversum Broadcast Rental called on 2Sat. Bas Giskes from 2Sat gave Klaver and Mandoonks a crash course in satellite technology and off they went to Marseille.