Cisco Sports & Entertainment Partners With EVS, Integrates StadiumVision With C-Cast

At NAB 2014, in addition to Cisco’s North Hall headquarters, where the company demonstrated advances in its Videoscape TV-service–delivery platform, Cisco’s Sports & Entertainment contingent set up shop in EVS’s South Hall booth. There, the two showcased EVS’s C-Cast at work within Cisco’s StadiumVision video– and digital-content–distribution solution, which uses the technology to make multicamera content instantly available on Web-connected mobile devices in sports venues.

“We’ve come up with an interesting way to do clip distribution,” says Bryan Bedford, ‎senior manager, business development, Global Emerging Partnerships, Cisco Sports & Entertainment. “We take from C-Cast, C-Cast can then publish select clips to the StadiumVision Mobile streamer, and we can grab that and play it here as a clip in the data channel. The value is that the teams in the trucks that are making the investment on the server side [EVS] and on the cloud side [C-Cast]       can leverage that same investment from an in-venue perspective.”

By integrating StadiumVision with an existing EVS infrastructure — including C-Cast, XT3 servers, and IPDirector — venues can stream content from the broadcast truck or control room to in-venue video screens via WiFi. Content can also be streamed to mobile devices using Cisco’s StadiumVision Mobile.

“If we can distribute those clips in a highly scalable manner, we think that’s got a lot of value where the market wants to go with in-venue experiences,” Bedford adds. “[The workflow] is pretty simple. … All we’re saying is, just leverage this existing infrastructure with the cloud. This is all the distribution that EVS has been doing for the last couple of years; now we’re seeing [demand for streaming] to the screens and the mobile devices. Let this be the distribution [workflow].”

At NAB 2014, Cisco demonstrated the workflow using content created in its recent deal with the NHL’s Ottawa Senators. In late 2013, the Senators announced the addition of Cisco StadiumVision to create Canadian Tire Centre Vision, becoming the first Canadian NHL franchise to incorporate StadiumVision.

Canadian Tire Centre Vision allows the entire venue to change content, color, and branding on a moment’s notice and deliver to each video monitor content — live event video, customized fan engagement, content, interactive advertising — specific to the unique needs and timing of each game or event. In addition to fan engagement, the system will create new revenue streams, merchandising solutions, and customized venue-usage opportunities for the venue and its partners.

“We have a services practice at Cisco,” says Bedford. “Most people think we sell boxes of gear, but it’s really a bigger solution, and part of that includes being able to deliver the content strategy and the content creation.”