Discovery Embraces Cost-Effective, Efficient Live Production with Evertz DreamCatcher Bravo

The latest addition to Evertz's DreamCatcher Production Suite technology has given Discovery all the tools it needs to create complex but highly profitable live content.

Discovery has become the first broadcaster in the world to implement Bravo, the newest addition to the live production tools suite DreamCatcher of Evertz.

By adopting this unique collaboration system as the production backbone for its high-profile, direct-to-consumer streaming service, Food Network Kitchen, Discovery can deliver numerous, complex live programs from many different locations with minimal staff.

Offering a complete digital food and cooking experience, Food Network Kitchen features thousands of live and on-demand cooking classes from Food Network's top chefs with thousands of recipes.

The service is integrated with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, which provides hands-free navigation to subscribers while they prepare their dishes. Subscribers can also order ingredients through Amazon, Peapod, and Instacart.

Rob Goldheim, vice president of production engineering at Discovery Group, and his team discovered the potential of Evertz DreamCatcher Bravo shortly after its launch at NAB 2019. The app's ability to create premium live content at a lower cost, and for multiple platforms, was a perfect fit for the demands of the Food Network Kitchen, which launched in October 2019.

Reliable, profitable and collaborative

Goldheim explains that "our main production challenge was to deliver a large number of live events without dramatically increasing staffing levels. By adding the functionality of DreamCatcher and Bravo, we are able to manage any number of live events with very small teams, typically just one television producer and one engineer. The system is reliable, cost-effective and collaborative, and also meets the strict quality requirements that Discovery demands for all of its program content."

DreamCatcher Bravo brought additional benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic because its flexibility, ease of use, and scalability allowed Discovery to continue streaming live programming on the Food Network Kitchen app, even though its talent and production teams were locked down.

Christian Jacobs, director of engineering for Discovery's New York office, says, "During lockdown we filmed live segments remotely from the chefs' kitchens using a starter kit incorporating a couple of iPhones, a tripod and simple production equipment. The combination of Bravo and DreamCatcher allowed us to make the production tools accessible remotely and as a result we were able to produce new live content on the Food Network Kitchen app, which was something many other apps and networks struggled with."

Evertz DreamCatcher Bravo provides all the features necessary for a multi-camera production, including video and audio mixing, dynamic graphics, support for external graphics engines, replays and summaries. By acting as a software client on the DreamCatcher playback node and taking advantage of the DreamCatcher's proprietary network architecture, Bravo has access to all inputs and can be used on any production, regardless of size or scale. Its intuitive touch surface interface uses the Evertz VUE technology and can be customized for one, two or more operators, giving them the controls they need to tackle a wide range of production tasks.

Discovery included DreamCatcher and Bravo solutions in its deployment of SMPTE ST 2110 in your facilities, based on Evertz Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solutions. This includes Magnum (SDVN Orchestration and Control), the switch Evertz IPX128 10G/25G, multiviewers IP, conversion evEDGE where necessary and 570ITXE enabling multiple distribution formats including baseband, IPTV H.264, and JPEG XS for distribution over Discovery's WAN.

Vince Silvestri, vice president of software systems at Evertz, says that "working with Discovery on the Food Network Kitchen project has been a great experience, as the application was a perfect fit for Bravo. Bravo's goal has always been to enable media companies like Discovery to tell great stories and create high-quality content across multiple platforms." We are excited to add more advanced features to the Bravo workflow to improve the user experience on the streaming service. These features include intelligent auto-framing for pan and 9x16 scanning, as well as advanced metadata insertion to allow the user to scroll through content using Alexa.”