Evertz Dreamcatcher selected for real-time live sports production by DAZN in Japan
Evertz has announced a new DreamCatcher deployment with Perform Group Japan, working on its live and on-demand sports streaming service, DAZN. Based out of the UK, Perform Group is a leading digital sports content and media group that collects, produces, packages and distributes content for their B2B clients and fans across one digital platform.
Last year, Perform launched its consumer-facing live and on-demand sports streaming platform, DAZN, in Japan, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. With a wide range of major global sports available as part of an affordable monthly subscription, fans can watch their favourite teams, leagues and players at home or on the go. In February, DAZN became the host broadcaster of Japan’s domestic football league – J.League – a partnership that will last for ten years.
“The J-League Launch for DAZN was conducted under a tight deadline, however the flexible nature of DreamCatcher and the support provided by Evertz allowed the engineering team to quickly iterate workflows as production requirements were refined,” said Robin Williams, Post Production Manager, Tokyo. “Since the launch, Evertz has worked hand-in-hand with Production and Engineering to add requested features and provide a more nuanced experience for DAZN which has reinforced our confidence in the system.”
Evertz worked with its local partner Ideal Systems Japan, an industry-leading multi-national systems integrator, to complete the DAZN installation which will handle the broadcasting of the J. League matches. Ideal Systems provided the system integration services to build the facility that included Evertz routing, conversion, and multiviewer infrastructure solutions. Evertz’ DreamCatcher platform was also a key component of the solutions.
The DreamCatcher platform allows DAZN to create real-time highlight packages of the J. League matches. DreamCatcher utilises a workflow that is both intuitive and efficient for DAZN’s operators. The IP-based workflow allows operators to quickly edit and package up to 20 games simultaneously across 10 operator stations.
“With an extremely modular interface, we could set a dedicated layout for each kind of usage, mainly clipping and editing. The editing tool is reliable and allows us to create extended edits with branding and user friendly workflows to follow,” said Pierre-Eliott Roussel, Post Projects Engineer, UK. “In addition to that, the media gateway [DC-MG] module allows us to quickly transcode content and deliver it to third party solutions without extra pieces of development or transcoding.”
One of the main requirements for the project was a need to edit and distribute live J. League content immediately following the completion of each match. Leveraging Evertz’ non-linear editor DC-LIVE-EDIT, each operator can complete craft audio/video edits in-line on the original live record trains. By remaining in the live content DC-LIVE-EDIT software allows operators to distribute finished packages with zero render times.
“The DC Live Edit tool allowed us to streamline the editing process allowing us to seamlessly move from clipping to an editorial environment within the same system, this greatly improved time to delivery for the final product,” said Robin Williams, Post Production Manager, Tokyo.
Live access opportunities
The DAZN DreamCatcher network provides full access to 20 live record trains from any of the five editing stations and five content creation stations. During games one operator clips, tags, archives and organize the incoming feeds while the second operator focuses on creating polished highlight packages for immediate distribution.
Outside live game times, operators are able to use DreamCatcher stations as craft editing stations with full access to archives and content from previous games. A powerful federated database and integrated search engine allows operators to quickly locate and organize content for editing.
“For the J league project, the DAZN Post Engineering team was tasked with the selection of a platform that met the production requirements, but which was also in line with the IP technology and workflow innovation strategy for our DAZN Internet TV service. However, we did not have the luxury of a long test period to compare lots of systems,” said Mike Edwards, Head of Post Engineering, Perform. “The Evertz UK team made the decision a lot easier for us, as we were able to spend several days at their UK office to pre-test all of our workflows on their DreamCatcher demo system. Once procurement of the system was agreed, we were able to return with members of the DAZN production team to modify and improve our workflows due to the application of the DC-LIVE EDIT software and Media Gateway system. This meant that we were able to document our workflows prior to system installation at the DAZN Tokyo Facility.”
“DAZN has been a fantastic partner for Evertz. We first collaborated last year on the deployment of a single DreamCatcher in Japan,” said Nima Malekmanesh, DreamCatcher Product Marketing Manager and Senior Engineer. “I believe that initial exposure to DreamCatcher really showcased the benefits of our system. We also provided DreamCatcher Academy sessions to ensure their operators are effectively utilizing the advance features of DreamCatcher, like DC-LIVE-EDIT.”