International Sports Broadcasting (ISB), host broadcaster at the Baku 2015 First European Games, selected Eurovision Production Coordination (EPC), as a technical partner for the inaugural multi-sport event. Together with Quantel, EPC decided to upgrade its Enterprise sQ fast-turnaround production system for the event to record, log and edit content for highlights packages at the competition. While recording and playing out the event as part of ISB's international delivery to 52 rights-holding organizations, the Enterprise sQ system was also integrated with MBT's (Media & Broadcast Technologies) templated logging software and workflow engine to provide a fast and efficient end-to-end sports highlights production solution.
Quantel workstations provided desktop viewers and eight craft editing stations, with no-copy, instant access to all content, enhanced by enriched metadata from the MBT loggers. Throughout the entire process, high resolution media never needed to be moved or copied from the Enterprise sQ system. This saved ISB valuable time in a very fast paced environment, and reduced storage costs. By avoiding islands of storage such as ingest pools, edit pools and playout pools, the sQ servers provided all operators with immediate working access to all media.
Also enabled by the sQ servers, remote logging and editing capabilities enabled client access from anywhere with an internet connection. MBT's Workflow Manager handled the exchange of MXF rich essence files with detachable storage for delivery to the master archive and for supply to client broadcasters. Playout was provided by Quantel's sQ Play application.
The Quantel sQ servers provided on-line storage for more than 1,200 hours of content, supporting a total of 18 simultaneous record feeds, controlled by the MBT software for record. Additional workstations were provided for ingest of P2 and XDCAM ENG files. Logging was via 15 stations with a templated logging tool, with dedicated graphical interfaces configured for each of the events.
The First European Games is an international multi-sport event for athletes representing the National Olympic Committees of Europe. Baku 2015 is the inaugural competition featuring more than 6,000 athletes from 50 countries.
Javier Polo, Engineering & Technical Operations Senior Manager at EPC, said, "We chose Enterprise sQ because of our previous experience using the system at the World Rally Championships and the IAAF Athletics World Championships Moscow 2013. The Quantel system is one we can rely on 24/7. It has a very simple and straightforward workflow, and together with MBT's powerful and intuitive logging interface, provides us with the fastest content production solution in the industry."
Quantel and Snell CEO, Tim Thorsteinson, said, "Quantel is the perfect choice for EPC - delivering a highly productive and innovative broadcast workflow."
