Barcelona Football Club, recently crowned European champions, have a fanatical following. When not at Nou Camp stadium those fans are often tuned to Barça TV, a dedicated channel founded 1999.Barça TV produces its own content, from studios at Nou Camp and other locations in Barcelona, covering the youth team and the fan base as well as first team news and matches. After 10 years on air, the station needed a complete technical refresh, and elected to migrate to a tapeless environment. The station’s technical team drew up a requirements specification and evaluated the market, deciding on technology from VSN, to be implemented by Unitecnic.There are three elements to the Barça system: the newsroom, master control, and a digital archive. In master control, the playout automation system has to be flexible, as often timings will depend upon a live match: if it goes into extra time the schedule needs to be replanned.The new installation uses two VSN systems. VSN Multicom automation works with EVS video servers and Vizrt graphics for the newsroom and playout. The system allows Barça TV to set up parallel schedules to cover over-running games, with the operators switching from one schedule to another at the very last moment.VSN CreaTV is used for programme planning. It interfaces with the VSN Multicom automation, and also with the Vizrt Ardome digital archive. All three systems use the same metadata schema to ensure seamless synchronisation.“VSN Multicom constitutes the heart of the channel’s technical system,” said Iban Martinez, technical manager at Barça TV. “It manages the playout servers, it requests the asset management system for content to be aired, and it manages the database of materials that are ready for broadcast. Thanks to this efficient management and performance we know our broadcasts are in good hands.”
