NEP Australia - the region's leading facilities provider - has purchased more than 20 new live production servers from EVS, the leading provider of live production solutions.
An initial order of 18 XT-VIA and four XS-VIA servers will be delivered to power live production of the premium UHD-4K cricket matches for Foxtel's new dedicated UHD channel. This will see FOX SPORTS deliver every Australian men’s Test match as well as One Day Internationals, T20 matches and selected Big Bash League games in ultra-high definition for the first time.
The servers will be deployed in four of NEP Australia’s mobile production trucks as part of a major upgrade to make them fully UHD capable. These add to the 27 XT-VIAs already deployed inside the company’s Andrews Hubs production centres in Sydney and Melbourne.
"It’s important that we address the market’s demand for higher-resolution content and use the latest technology to provide our customers with industry-leading services,” said Marc Segar, NEP Australia’s Director of Technology. “This deal shows how committed the NEP Group is to providing the best possible UHD-4K facilities. We already have nearly 50 UHD-capable EVS servers in place, so we can confidently say NEP has the largest higher-resolution replay infrastructure in the world.”
Following this initial season of UHD cricket, the XT-VIA servers’ ability to operate in SDI or IP means they can migrate from NEP production trucks into the hubs, where UHD cricket will be produced for subsequent seasons alongside over 500 sporting events annually via the hubs’ SMPTE 2110-driven IP remote production network.
