Fox Sport Eredivisie, efficiency and flexibility in a new concept of production and broadcast center

EVS technology allows Fox Sports Eredivisie in the Netherlands to ingest, edit and broadcast highlights, as well as slow motion replays, connect and contribute media from the different venues. It also enables second screen content delivery with additional footage and alternative camera angles, offering viewers a better, enriched experience.

Sin duda, uno de los proyectos más ambiciosos llevados a cabo en todo el mundo en los últimos meses es la puesta en marcha de Fox Sports Eredivisie. Una joint venture entre la holandesa Eredivisie Media & Marketing, Fox Intl. Channels (con el 51%), Endemol y la asociación nacional de fútbol KNVB ha hecho posible lanzar este canal deportivo en los Países Bajos.

Fox Sport Eredivisie was launched on August 1 with the rights to both the first and second division football leagues and KNVB Beker.

Since its conception in the middle of last year, the project pursued two goals: on the one hand, to make possible the distribution of content on multiple platforms and to increase the viewer's experience of major sporting events.

In its design, Endemol Sport entrusted EVS a good part of the project with a 360º approach that included a central ingest platform, production asset management, instant media exchange, live studio production and second screen applications.

The new sports channel has just one month after its launch with 600,000 subscribers who can follow sports broadcasts and their associated data and applications via online, tablet, smartphone or smart TV.

The channel workflow is fully HD, with content immediately accessible anywhere, powerful graphics engines and first and second screen integration.

In its four studios, Fox Sport Eredivisie will produce 110 hours annually. In these facilities, the main set equipped with a semicircular videomapping with 5 projectors draws attention. Panasonic (inserted in soundproof box) with watchout management Dataton and Spider. The result is innovative studios, with an impeccable scenographic line and very practical from a technical point of view. In addition, the options provided by the EVS C-Cast platform allow, for example, presenters to control repetition, pause, zoom or multi-camera selection from their own tablets... enriching the broadcast.

Content management

Fox Sport Eridivisie has been conceived from the point of view of content management based on the principle that everyone has access to all the material and anywhere.

The entire workflow at the Fox Sports studios, located at Endemol's headquarters next to the MediaArena stadium on the outskirts of Amsterdam, is based on EVS technology, from the ingestion and metadata management of material from different locations to studio production and delivery of second screen content. EVS' long relationship with Endemol Sports, together with its Sports360° concept, made the Belgian manufacturer the natural choice for this project. The scalability of its technology, along with its reputed reliability, have also been key deciding factors.

Five EVS

EVS' IPDirector asset management suite controls XS servers and manages content, including a tool that schedules the ingestion of incoming signals to nearline storage (EVS XStoreSAN) or the system. Avid Interplay / ISIS, with live logging using the IPLogger application.

Fox Sports also has around thirty licenses of the EVS IPBrowse application, which allows journalists and production staff to quickly and efficiently search through all the corresponding material, with proxy resolution, in the storage closest to their desktop or laptop computer. Users can use the tool to select content and send it to different destinations, including Avid post-production systems.

Victor Winkelhagen, head of production at Endemol Sport, highlighted that "the IPBrowse application has been a real revelation for us. It not only helps save time, but also allows us to enrich our editorial work. For example, when a presenter refers to a certain moment after a match, we can immediately search for the clip with IPBrowse and send it for playback on the screens located in the studio itself. Being able to work with a centralized media platform has led us to be much more effective in our editorial work and has even helped us promote different packages through the network.”

Metadata

After ingestion, two types of metadata are added for incoming signals: objective metadata, including match statistics (e.g. fouls or yellow cards) and subjective metadata based on visual effects (e.g. reactions of players, coaches and fans…). All this information is used to compile a record sheet that contains several fields such as event description, keywords and colors to identify the action…

All objective metadata is compiled in London by sports specialists from the company Opta, provider of the official statistics of the Eredivisie league, and automatically integrated into the IPDirector database through the Ingest Scheduler tool. Subjective metadata is added in the production center itself while watching the matches, while verifying the entries coming from Opta and adding information based on what they see. Metadata is made available in real time to all users of the IPDirector suite. With the EVS IPLog2Post tool, all registry entries are automatically associated with media files within Avid editing systems. A total of six recording stations are located in the center, with each coach recording an average of about 200-300 logs per game.

Live broadcast

Fox Sport Eredivisie has six EVS XT3 servers, with LSM remote control panels, for live production. These are used for live replays and the production of immediate summaries. The servers provide support for full dual encoding, handling both XDCAM HD and DNxHD. All EVS servers are connected via a high-bandwidth XNet2 network for media exchange, allowing content to be accessible directly from the XS ingest servers.

The entire workflow is managed by the IPDirector suite, allowing operators to transfer content recorded on the XT3 to nearline storage and Avid systems, or vice versa. The XS servers are also used for studio broadcast, including finished parts from Avid systems. Each server can handle up to six channels, with two servers installed in each of the production galleries.

Any of the content recorded on the XT3 and XS servers can be saved as a clip and enhanced with graphics provided by the Reality Check and Vizrt (Trio), as well as through sports analysis tools Piero de Red Bee.

For its studies, Fox Sport Eredivisie has trusted the Kayak 3/32 mixers from Grass Valley, and a digital intercom system Riedel.

Instant connection

One of the key elements of the new Fox Sports workflow is the ability to easily exchange media between the different mobile units at the venues and the broadcast center next to the Mediarena in Amsterdam. During a match, LSM operators in the stadium create clips that are automatically pulled from the XT3 servers and transferred to the XStoreSAN nearline in the broadcast center via Aspera's high-speed transport technology (300Mbps fiber connection). All input clips corresponding to a timecode are automatically linked to a log sheet,

As a result, journalists and production staff have easy access to clips created in each stadium as each match unfolds. On average between 75 and 100 clips are created during the course of each match. In practical terms, this means that highlight packages can be created during the course of the game, rather than having to wait until the match is over. Meanwhile, content in nearline storage can also be transferred from the broadcast center to different locations.

According to Winkelhagen, this generates significant time savings. "There are two big benefits of this workflow. Firstly, we can start compiling clips for highlights and other material much sooner, saving us an hour of work compared to the traditional procedure. Secondly, we can tell our stories differently and enrich the live program with relevant content selected by LSM operators on site by showing, for example, an angle that clearly shows a foul," he explains.

At the stadium, operators also use EVS' EpsioLive graphical tool, designed specifically for sports applications and forming an essential part of the LSM remote control panel, to insert the offside line on the first replay.

Second screen

In addition to its television services, Fox Sports also offers content through its Sidekick second screen application designed by Infostrad. Fox Sports channel subscribers can use the application to watch the game with the option to access different camera angles and statistics directly from their tablet or smartphone. Sidekick is powered by content fed through the EVS C-Cast live multicam media distribution platform.

This second screen workflow is managed by two technicians: one uses IPDirector to create clips, as well as add descriptive keywords for each clip, and the other reviews all angles and manages their approval from a standard workstation. Once approved, the clips and associated metadata are transcoded to the Infostrada CDN and made available in a matter of seconds in the Sidekick application.