Air Time TV Outside Broadcasts, a subsidiary of SABC Television, chose EVS equipment to broadcast and store all footage of the live 46664 Concert, held in honor of World AIDS Day 2007.
The 2007 concert is the fifth to be held so far, with musical acts such as Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, Ludacris, Jamelia, Razorlight, Corinne Bailey Rae, and the Goo Goo Dolls performing at Ellis Park in Johannesburg to raise awareness of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In order to broadcast and archive the event in High Definition, the Air Time OB van used five 6-channel HD XT[2]s to ingest the 16 HD camera feeds during the concerts, which lasted around 6 hours total. EVS' Multicam LSM was used for live replay and on-the-fly editing, including one operator who was specifically dedicated to creating a playlist that would cut out the on-stage switchover time between acts. This playlist was then broadcast on a one-hour delay time delay, making the HD broadcast a clean-cut five hour event.
Back up of all footage (ISO Camera and Director's Cut) was managed using 4 of EVS' XFile[2] hardware with 10 removable hard drives of 750 GB each, all running XFile software and XStream modules. Thanks to EVS' tapeless technology, the storage was done simultaneously with the live broadcast and ingest. The XT[2] with Multicam LSM application was also employed to create clips corresponding to each concert that were backed up on the removable hard drive disks for further transfer to post production, and to DVD for future broadcasting.
"Using the Multicam LSM for instant clips and the XFile[2] for digital back up clearly saved us a lot of time in the workflow," said Cosmo Caddy, International Coordinator for 46664. "But on top of that, the digital files are much easier to edit in post production on a non-linear editing system than videotape."
"EVS was very glad to be a part of this event," said Marc Caeymaex, Head of EVS Ibérica (in charge of Spain, Portugal, and South Africa). "We've worked with SABC in the past, and we always enjoy collaborating with them, but we're especially proud to be involved in an event with such a worthy mission as the 46664 Concert."
