The Score Television Network, a national 24-hour sports channel based in Toronto, Canada, has placed a significant order for Grass Valley Digital News Production Solution products from Thomson.
Over the course of the project, the network will add 10 Grass Valley FeedClip systems and six Grass Valley NewsEdit nonlinear editing systems to its operation.
The network will use the new digital news production equipment to increase efficiency and reduce its sports highlight packages’ time to air from the current six minutes after an event to approximately three minutes. The equipment will also facilitate the production of more than 20 hours of highlight programming and sports news per day.
The network will operate the NewsEdit systems on a local Fiber/LAN at its 12,000 square-foot facility in Toronto. By replacing its current editors with the NewsEdit and FeedClip systems, the network expects to nearly double its current output of roughly 40 one- to three-minute projects from each of its suites per broadcast day.
Currently, when producing highlight segments, reporters at The Score Television Network must record/digitize a game in real-time, stop recording then play the tagged material real-time into an edit station, then package the material for air. After the addition of graphics, effects and voice-over, the finished piece is played out in real-time from the edit station to an existing Grass Valley PVS 1100 Profile XP Media Platform server. The material is then played manually or automated to air. This process can take more than six or seven minutes, for each 1-3 minute pack.
With the Grass Valley NewsEdit systems, highlight production time to air will be cut in half and the network will see transfer times of eight- to 16 times real-time speed between FeedClip to NewsEdit then NewsEdit to the Profile server., The finished material is pushed directly on to the on-air Profile system via the Fiber network. This acceleration will let it produce more programming or spend more time on individual pieces.
The NewsEdit systems will also allow the network to leverage its existing template graphics. Editors will be able to call up specific “looks” for various sports and, using the NewsEdit systems, drop in live video and audio. The NewsEdit systems will be connected to the network’s in-house LAN, giving staff editors the ability to share more material easily. The Graphics department will also be able to move graphics and animations directly on to the edit platform through the LAN.
Grass Valley's FeedClip system and its two built-in channels of simultaneous record and play will also be added. Currently, the network’s reporters operate four ingest stations to cover two separate games per suite. With the FeedClip system, the same suite will be able to record/digitize and tag four games simultaneously using half the equipment that is currently being used. Once an item has been tagged by a simple mouse click it will be immediately transferred to the NewsEdit station in the suite at Fiber speeds for packaging to air.
For more information visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.
