Bexel Broadcast Services, a long-standing partner of EVS, and Winnercomm, an independent sports production leader, set out to create a winning workflow at The Breeders Cup in Louisville, Kentucky this year. At the racing series, the EVS IP Director was used to optimize and enhance the ENG-based workflow.
"IP Director helped us manage video content over a network that included 12 EVS systems and 4 HD Avid Systems," stated Joseph Lyons, VP Broadcast Operations of Winnercomm. This workstation was responsible for ingest and logging all of the ENG tapes to the local edit XT Server. Field logs were transposed to the IP Director logging module creating an extremely powerful and searchable database of fundamentals available to all editing suites.
In the screening trailer, IP Director browsing stations were also installed, allowing producers to search and organize material prior to their edit session. With over 100 entries compiled, there was an enormous amount of footage shot available to search through in an entire library. The ability to view instant results was a huge time saver.
The linear edit suite had access to 2 EVS channels under the IP Director and editor control. Meanwhile, each HD NLE suite was equipped with an IP Director with a single EVS channel under editor RS-422 control. Each producer had the ability to use a pre-built cliplist or storage bins. A benefit to this was that they had powerful search capabilities to accommodate on the fly decisions made during their edit suite.
On race day, the editing infrastructure was converted from the ENG based configuration to a live editing configuration. The editing system had access to the entire production including all of the records trains available through the EVS network. Now, the editing suites had access to every existing clip. This gave producers direct access to the raw record trains without having to further rely on EVS operators to clip material.
In addition to the live editing that was completed, a producer melt station was in full operation. The Library/Ingest workstation was converted allowing the producer specific melts to be created. In this case, SD Digibeta was the format of choice. The melt producer built a 90-minute cliplist of material to be used in his studio the following day. As the cliplist became completed, it was rolled out to tape. The IP Director's ability to allow precise control of melt material was imperative; this material could either be played out to tape or directed to the EVS X-File as a digital archive.
Bexel's BBS team used insightful preparation to control which edit suites had direct access to the ENG ingest XT server, requiring production XT operators to copy all clips across the network instead of playing them to air remotely.
Utilizing data management, administrative support and in some cases, old fashioned, manual traffic management, it was clear how the Bexel-Winnercomm joint effort produced a first place winning solution using EVS.
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