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China Broadcasters Unveil Tech Innovations for Beijing Winter Olympics

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China Media Group has launched CCTV-8K, an 8K ultra-high-definition TV channel, to broadcast the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, state-owned news agency Xinhua reports.

To deliver the channel, CMG had to accelerate development of its nascent 8K production, broadcasting and transmission operations, said the Asian Broadcasting Union.

CMG has started to install giant 8K screens in public places across the country, starting with four railway stations in Beijing and Olympic venue Zhangjiakou.

Other media novelties this year include Kuaishou, a short video and live-streaming platform, being set as an official broadcast partner. Kuaishou claims more than a billion downloads of its app and to be catching fierce rival Bytedance (which owns both TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin.)
The games are set to go ahead in an ultra-strict anti-COVID bubble. Athletes, officials and media are conditionally allowed to enter, but a decision was recently taken not to allow any members of the public as spectators.

Acclaimed movie director Zhang Yimou is designated as director of the opening ceremony, set for Feb. 4. Zhang who previously directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics, said that the upcoming show will lean more on technology than manpower to impress. He said it will have around 3,000 performers, only a fifth of the number he deployed in 2008. The performance will run to less than 100 minutes, due to COVID fears and the bitterly cold weather.

“The scale and duration [of the ceremonies] have been cut, and there is no longer a large-scale theatrical performance segment,” said Zhang. “We’ve significantly reduced the number of performers, and [instead] use technology to make [the stage] less crowded, but not empty. Technology and new concepts will make it feel full, ethereal and romantic.”

Another big name director Lu Chuan (“Kekexili: Mountain Patrol,” Disney Nature’s “Born in China”) has been selected to direct the official film of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (BOCOG) announced on Tuesday.

The Beds at the Beijing Olympic Village Are Guaranteed to Make Tokyo Athletes Jealous​

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There's no hard truth to uncover here.

Ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, luge athlete Summer Britcher wants the world to know that the beds in the Olympic Village in Beijing are out of this world.

After landing in Beijing, she was asked if the Olympic Village's beds were made of cardboard like they notoriously had been at the Tokyo Olympics over the summer. And her answer is going to delight fans—and probably annoy some 2020 athletes.


"I am so excited you asked this question, because I have something incredible to share," Britcher said in a TikTok video. "Because not only do we not have cardboard beds here, but it's as if the Beijing organizing committee said, ‘How can we just absolutely just one up Tokyo?'"

The athlete shared a close up of the bed's personal remote control, which showed that it could be raised and lowered into multiple positions for maximum comfort. Not bad, right?

The Best Movies & TV Shows To Get You In the Spirit For the Olympics

In a follow-up clip, Britcher was seen happily tucked in as she said, "I'm in Zero-G mode now. It's phenomenal."

Summer Britcher, Olympian, TikTok

TikTok
There was certainly one athlete from last year's games who was envious of Britcher and her high tech bed: U.S. rugby player Ilona Maher, who shared her hilarious reaction on TikTok.

"Your... Your bed has a whole remote to it? It has modes?" Maher said, getting progressively more emotional as she spoke. "How big is it? It looks pretty big."

"Our beds in Tokyo were like, only like that big," she said, making a small gesture with her thumb and forefinger. "And they were highly flammable. And very solid. They were very solid beds. My back hurt like, a week after I started laying on them."

Fighting back fake tears, Maher added, "But have fun! That looks awesome. That looks so cool."

Back at the 2020 Summer Olympics, there was frequent discussion surrounding the so-called "cardboard beds" at the Village, which began after U.S. runner Paul Chelimo tweeted an image of the lightweight bedframes and said that they could only "withstand the weight of a single person" as part of a plan to avoid "intimacy among athletes."

That thought process was later debunked by Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan, who put the self-described "anti-sex" beds to the test by posting a video of himself gleefully jumping up and down on one.

"Apparently they're meant to break at any sudden movements," McClenaghan said. When the bed did not break, he declared, "It's fake! Fake news!"

Don't miss the 2022 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony Friday, Feb. 4 on NBC and Peacock.

 
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