At the recent Emir’s International Equestrian Sword Festival, one of the most prestigious horse racing events in the international calendar, EVS live video production systems featured prominently.
Featuring a state-of-the-art video production, broadcast and archive workflow built around EVS technology, the Qatar Racing & Equestrian Club (REC), near the capital of Doha, is one of the most modern racecourses in the world.
While the EVS production workflow was used to deliver all the action from the event to race-goers at the course, EVS technology was also comprehensively utilised by the outside broadcast unit from Qatari broadcaster Al Kass, which provided television coverage of the event.
EVS’ XTRef Software, a multi-camera review solution specifically designed for stewards and race officials, was used for the first time on the day.
Video production servers, referred to as EVS XT3, and controlled by LSM panels are central to Qatar REC’s workflow, and are used to ingest multiple camera feeds and produce instant replays and highlights.
Additionally, EVS’ IPDirector production asset management suite enables the production team to effortlessly and proficiently manage ingest scheduling, live logging, to search and preview recorded content, as well as create playlists between races.
Each week, around 100 hours of raw recordings is generated and all this content is transferred to an EVS XStore NAS central storage network, ready for access in both high and low resolution by Avid and Adobe editors, while archivists determine what will be maintained in the long-term storage.
The EVS’ IP2Archive tool archives the view of each race from multiple camera angles allowing operators to store media files on Linear Tape-Open (LTO) tapes and restore the files on the central storage at a later date when the material is required.
During the live television coverage of the Emir’s Sword event, Al Kass’ outside broadcast vehicles were equipped with EVS XT3 servers, and connected to Qatar REC’s live production workflow, which enabled Al Kass and Qatar REC to benefit from a smooth exchange of content.
Images captured from Al Kass’ two Imovix hyper-motion 300-frames-a-second cameras were available to the Qatar REC production team and to the race stewards.
Says Jean Bernard Lebon, TV Director at Qatar Racing and Equestrian Club: “The system we’ve developed together with EVS provides a fast and reliable solution – from the ingest of multiple camera feeds all the way to deep archive.’
He adds that industry-standard technology, such as EVS’ servers and XNet media sharing network, and the plug-and-play integration with third-party editing and hierarchical storage management systems creates a flexible and innovative workflow.
“We can also easily interwork with other production facilities like Al Kass, delivering real productivity and quality benefits for everyone,’ concludes Lebon.
EVS’ XT3 server and IPDirector suite, and their integration with third-party systems, can now be seen at CABSAT 2014 on Stand G6-30, Hall 6.
