EVS’ C-Cast powers multicam app for motorcycle racing

The FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) appointed EVS to deploy its near-live media delivery and distribution technology, C-Cast, during the Bol d’Or FIM Endurance World Championship in France, 20-21 April 2013.

C-Cast allows FIM to monetize live content by creating an extended media application for broadcast and non-broadcast organizations — including the BMW Motorrad France and Honda TT Legend race teams.

The HD live broadcast infrastructure offering live streaming on FIM-TV provided media for the C-Cast app. The EVS C-Cast multicam media delivery infrastructure comprised:

  • IPDirector production asset management suite in the OB truck for creating and selecting highlights and logging AV clips.
  • C-Cast agent in the OB truck for automated, on-the-fly, multi-angle clip/media processing, including transcoding in H.264 lo- and hi-res along with logging information for central cloud storage. Any clips created by IPDirector or the LSM (used for the live broadcast production) could be instantly made available in a cloud database in the most appropriate format.
  • C-Cast central, a web server giving access to all multi-angle clips, exclusive sequences and highlights to decide what should be delivered to end users and in which format.

The users of the new app were fourfold. The BMW Motorrad France and Honda TT Legend race teams could review specific camera angles and follow their motorcycles on the track switching seamlessly from one camera to another.

“Being able to review otherwise inaccessible content is a huge benefit for us,” said Ian Wheeler, Communications Manager at BMW Motorrad France Team Thevent. “The app enabled us to import interesting clips or highlights as proxy files on a dedicated FTP site for further race analysis with the riders at the end,” he added.

In this case, proxy files were available in the H264 file format (2.5 Mb/s).

Getty Images had an agreement with the FIM to provide official and rights managed video available for agencies on their website.

“We were contracted by the FIM to provide exclusive video sequences and download services through our web library,” said Eugene Cariaga, Commercial Director, at Getty Images. “Through the iPad app, we could browse and make our selections. The content was then pushed to our FTP portal by EVS along with additional metadata to describe each clip, the clips were then sent to our digital platform www.gettyimages.com.”

In total more than 50 hi-res video highlights have been provided to Getty Images, all available for download less than one hour after the live broadcast.