Gearhouse Broadcast, has announced an investment of over £2 million in EVS’ HD-SD XT[2] server platforms as well as additional ancillary solutions and interfaces.
The primary element of Gearhouse Broadcast’s recent EVS investment are ten 6-Channel HD-SD SLSM-XT[2] broadcast servers, taking the company’s inventory of EVS servers to 40. The XT[2] platform uses a new generation of EVS technology, which allows full HD/SD compatibility.
“For Gearhouse Broadcast the XT2 delivers a full range of world-class applications for live and post production, content management and playout allowing us to access new markets,” said Eamonn Dowdall, MD, Gearhouse Broadcast.
New features of the XT[2] server include up to six fully reversible channels, a 1.5Gb/s inter-server SDTI network, improved internal storage (up to 160 hours in SD or 60 hours in HD), multiformat support (M-JPEG & IMX), eight embedded audio tracks per channel and a new gigabit network interface for offline file transfers.
“With new HD technology on super slow motion, the EVS solution will add unsurpassed value to the end user. The EVS solution also ensures that footage is available immediately for replay and highlights in the fast moving worlds of sport live broadcasting,” added Dowdall.
Interface purchases made by the company include EVS’ [IP] Director, a new integrated suite of production tools that offer intuitive control of single or multiple EVS servers, and one XFile[2] digital archive and gateway solution together with media[X]change video transcoding software, which allows for faster than realtime file transfer from EVS servers to popular nonlinear editors including Final Cut Pro, Avid and DPS Velocity.
Finally, it’s also bought two systems of EVS’ own NLE, Clean Edit[2] and its hosting XStore[2] media server. Clean Edit[2] is an end-to-end production editing system used predominantly for news, sports and light entertainment. Together with EVS’ XT[2] servers it combines all the flexibility of tapeless systems with the creativity of NLEs for fast and efficient production in both SD and HD.
Unsurprisingly, much of the above is being heavily utilised at this summer’s World Cup. Gearhouse Broadcast is to supply a fully integrated EVS production system for ESPN at the IBC in Munich. The facilities will include three HD-SD XT[2] servers for media ingest, storage and playout; an XFile[2] with media[X]change for automatic media archiving and file transfer to an Avid editing suite for craft edits; eight [IP] Director workstations for live event logging as well as content browsing by producers, which when found can be instantly transferred to two CleanEdit NLE workstations for fast turnaround edits.
