BBC Sport signs EVS deal for Salford

BBC Sport has inked a deal with EVS for the Belgian manufacturer to provide the Corporation with an integrated broadcast system at the heart of its new file-based Sports Production System (SPS). The SPS, which will be installed at the BBC’s new MediaCityUK facility in Salford Quays, has been designed to create fast turnaround productions, highlight packages and craft edits using EVS servers and IPDirector.

The system has 44 channels and is capable of 36 simultaneous ingests with 1500 hours of HD storage capacity. It can also expand further as necessary to manage dedicated coverage of large events, such as the Olympics or the World Cup.

Material that is recorded onto EVS XS and XT3 servers can be edited instantly using either EVS’ Multicam LSM or IPDirector. The material is then streamed to an Omneon MediaGrid via EVS XTAccess where a proxy is made available for up to 400 journalists and producers to view the footage. IPDirector provides a single interface to the material across all servers, so journalists and producers do not need to worry about which server to browse. The media management component of IPDirector further speeds up the process, days EVS, by enabling producers to place restrictions on what media is available to view – for example, editors working on a football package may only need to see football-related clips, making their search time quicker. Descriptive metadata are added to each clip at ingest, and more information is added whenever a clip is used or modified, allowing a comprehensive history of each clip to be built for the archive.

A Work In Progress (WIP) area is equipped with Final Cut Pro edit stations for longer form editing work; these stations are connected directly to the Omneon MediaGrid. Using IPLink, the new EVS FCP import plug-in, editors can easily find media created by producers, or search and import media to their FCP projects using the same metadata as the producers. Once an edit is complete, the EVS Final Cut Pro export plug-in is used to send the edit to the correct playout server, as well as creating browse copies to be reviewed by journalists and producers. Playout is handled manually by EVS’ LSM remote controllers or IPDirector for playlist management and automated rundowns with ENPS’ NRCS.

All being well, the Sports Production System is scheduled to go live by the end of 2011.