Sports production specialist Input Media created the international match re-versions for all Tottenham Hotspur FC and Arsenal FC Premier League matches during 2010-11 with a well honed workflow that was first introduced to support its match day production for Setanta, writes Adrian Pennington.
Clean feeds from the outside broadcast at each Arsenal match are fed into Input Media’s London HQ where the team’s first job is to add the clock and score bug in addition to off-tube commentary.
This full match feed is ingested, via EVS XT2 and the Avid/EVS media integration software, into Input Media’s 48TB of shared Unity ISIS storage. Clip assets are checked-in and managed by Input’s Avid Interplay Production Asset Management system.
“Depending on the amount of time available we do one of two things,” explained Director of Technology, Nick Symes. “With a slightly wider window before playout, pre-cut features, opening and closing material and some match specific graphics are all added within Nitris DX, then the match is laid off to tape for playout.
“If the turnaround time is tighter we’ll also do a tape record of the full match feed and simultaneously ingest the match into Avid, so any required changes can be done in Nitris DX and then dropped back onto the master tape to save layoff time.”
For Spurs matches the incoming pictures are given voiceover and graphics as a linear process before ingest into AirSpeed, which frame chases the video direct into Unity for cut and record as before. If turnaround times are too tight for tape, the full programme is file-transferred to AirSpeed for server-based playout.
“This workflow enables us to make the best use of an NLE environment and the flexibility that that provides, combined with some traditional linear processes to start moving what would only have been possible in a tape based edit, into a hybrid environment working off servers but still ending up with a tape deliverable,” explained Symes.
Input also produces a 98-hour programme schedule for Chelsea TV each week, including pre-season, and a three-hour international show for Everton FC.
