Australia’s Channel Nine Takes on News & Sport Playout

Channel Nine in Australia is now using an integrated playout infrastructure based
on EVS XT series servers for fast playout and control of breaking news, promos,
commercials and sports highlights.

Complementing their existing playout system based on Harris Media Spy integration, the EVS integration has been adopted to add a level of reactivity required to accommodate breaking news and live content. An EVS XT3 server configured with two channels for ingest and five for playout, and controlled using VDCP, Video Disk Control Protocol, a proprietary communications protocol that controls hard disk video servers for broadcast TV, enables Channel Nine to play out content at different times for different markets, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin and the Gold Coast.
Two additional EVS XT series servers with MulticamLSM remote controllers handle instant replay and control of the recorded material, including graphics. Multicam LSM works with either HD or SD format material, with a replay mode function in slow motion, super motion and various on-the-fly editing actions. Choices include clip management, playlist management, split screen mode, delay functions for live and near-live presentation and creative graphics tools. Multicam LSM is scalable and adapts to most live production configurations or workflows including acquisition, editing, playout and archiving. Two EVS IPEdit live timeline editing modules enable operators to edit content during playout without needing to render. These modules were designed for quick-fixing operations and last-minute edits. When combined with the XT/XS series servers, IPEdit adds normal timeline editing functions to live broadcast operations, including TV sports and entertainment production and playout.
Two EVS XTAccess gateways are used to transcode content on demand from the IPEdit editors. The gateway software, based on standard Ethernet LAN or WAN connections, facilitates media interchange between EVS’ XT3 and XS production systems with third-party tools – for post-production, switchers, controllers, storage, archives, file-based camcorders, graphics, MAM and so on – as a security and efficiency measure. To enhance the system integration, XTAccess handles a series of other automatic media-conforming operations apart from transcoding, such as media rewrapping and playlist rendering during interchange of non-natively supported media. It is possible to automate processes by exchanging XML job files, for example, or by scanning media files in folders.  www.evs.tv