BBC Sport is having an EVS-based broadcast facility installed for its new file-based Sports Production System (SPS) at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, writes Adrian Pennington.
The system will have 44 channels and be capable of 36 simultaneous ingests with 1,500 hours of HD storage capacity. It is being installed with an eye to managing large events, such as the Olympics or the World Cup.
The SPS has been designed to create fast turnaround productions, highlight packages and craft edits.
Material recorded onto nine EVS XS and XT3 servers can be edited instantly using either Multicam LSM or 20 IPDirector stations. The material is then streamed to an Omneon MediaGrid via EVS XTAccess, where a proxy is made available for up to 400 journalists and producers, via IPDirector thin client Browsers, to view the footage.
The media management component of IPDirector further speeds up the process by enabling producers to place restrictions on what media is available to view – for example, editors working on a football package may only need to see football-related clips, making their search time quicker.
Descriptive metadata is added to each clip at ingest, and more information is added whenever a clip is used or modified, allowing a comprehensive history of each clip to be built for the archive.
A work in progress area will be equipped with FCP edit stations for longer form editing work. These stations are connected directly to the Omneon MediaGrid.
Using EVS FCP import plug-in IPLink, editors can find media, or search and import media to FCP projects using the same metadata as the producers.
Once an edit is complete, the EVS Final Cut Pro export plug-in is used to send the edit to the correct playout server, as well as creating browse copies to be reviewed by journalists and producers.
Playout will be handled manually by EVS’ LSM remote controllers or IPDirector for playlist management and automated rundowns with ENPS’ NRCS.
The Sports Production System is scheduled to go live by the end of 2011.
