The Evertz EQX router
PITTSBURGH, PA.—Last year, ESPN came to our design engineering team at NEP with a challenge—develop a brand new outside broadcast truck designed to meet the massive production needs for their major live remote broadcasts, including Monday Night Football.
As the leading provider of solutions for remote and studio production, we were up to the challenge and designed this next generation outside broadcast truck—the EN1—which will be the nation’s largest when it’s launched in early fall. Due to the massive production requirements that this truck will need to support, EN1 requires the best-in-breed technologies and an extremely dense and reliable infrastructure. A key part in this infrastructure is Evertz’ EQX routing core. It’s based on the strong technology development relationship we’ve had with Evertz, and also previous successful EQX router implementations which operate throughout the worldwide NEP outside broadcast fleet of more than 60 HD trucks.
In planning the architecture for EN1, our NEP team worked closely with Evertz to develop a very large matrix with massive audio support that fits within our size, weight, and budget constraints, yet would meet the scale, infrastructure and I/O requirements that the truck’s design demands.
REALLY LARGE ROUTING CAPACITY
With the Evertz EQX high-density core router at the heart of the system, NEP’s EN1 has the ability to route a staggering 500 inputs and 3,000 outputs in just two frames. On top of this, it has the added capability of routing and processing up to 16 channels of embedded audio, including shuttling of tracks.
The truck’s routing infrastructure is extremely dense, flexible and scalable, and even at its current massive capacity, it has the ability to expand even farther as ESPN’s needs grow. One of the ways in which the immense scale of routing was accomplished in this project was through a mix of standard I/O and Evertz’s Xlink technology. This is not just for multiviewing, but also for interconnecting the routers.
In addition to the EQX router, NEP’s EN1 employs a wide range of Evertz routing and multiviewing systems. The truck design incorporates more than 160 advanced control panels, the Evertz Magnum unified control system, VIP-X multiviewer system, tally interface, an EMR router for audio routing, and more.
Though we required a massive infrastructure, space and weight are always big issues for outside broadcast trucks. The Evertz system provided us with major routing capability in a very small footprint, allowing us to integrate their technologies easily into our design, thus helping us to maximize usable production space and keep the truck’s weight in check.
We have a great relationship with Evertz, and time and again have selected their technologies for our outside broadcast trucks as their products have proven to be extremely scalable, reliable and flexible. As we continue to push the design and capacity of our trucks further along, we know Evertz will be able to keep pace and meet new demands.
George Hoover is the chief technology officer at NEP Broadcasting. He may be contacted atgeorge.hoover@nepinc.com.
For additional information, contact Evertz at 877-995-3700 or visitwww.evertz.com.
