EVS Deploys Live Solutions at FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 in Germany

From June 26th to July 17th, The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 in Germany is on the edge of marking a milestone in competitive women’s football with first rate television coverage in terms of production and distribution.  This is a major step in women’s football competition to be on par with men’s tournaments when it comes to broadcasting. The event’s host broadcaster HBS requires EVS technology for all live replays and live editing operations of matches managed by multiple OB facilities involving German TopVision, Studio Berlin and TVN.

Games are played in nine different stadiums throughout Germany (Augsburg, Bochum, Frankfurt, Monchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Berlin, Dresden, Leverkusen, Sinsheim) and are covered by 16 HD cameras for regular matches and up to 18 HD cameras for top matches. Each camera angle are recorded on five XT series servers (six channels each) controlled by 5 LSM remotes connected through a high bandwidth media sharing network allowing live operation teams to control any instant shot for slo-mo replays, prepared advanced highlights packages and closers.

All systems are managed by IPDirector, EVS’ production content management system, which allows reviewing and smooth handling of all recorded media and key sequences. The system is used to exchange files transparently via Avid and Apple FCP editing suite for advanced montage.

Initially introduced by HBS in Johannesburg last summer, the Epsio live graphic analysis system has been added to the live OB setup for the replay of litigious actions involving offside positions of players. Integrated to the XT system and controlled by the LSM remote controller, Epsio manages an auto-detection of the playing field with autographic overlay creation, allowing operators to draw a line in under 5 seconds showing the offside positions of players.

All live program feeds are gathered at the IBCC (Broadcast Coordination Centre) based in Frankfurt mainly dedicated to unilateral broadcast operations. Following the successful operation of last year’s World Cup media exchange platform entirely based on EVS systems, various broadcasters covering this year’s Women World Cup have opted for smaller scale workflow based on EVS servers and content management system offering similar capabilities.  

At ARD-ZDF, live incoming feeds are recorded on two EVS XT series servers allowing the production team to create extra highlights and polished edits using EVS live editing tools or Avid suite. Since all media is recorded natively as Avid DNxHD® codec based on EVS’ new webservice API, the media exchange between EVS and Avid editing suite can be managed without wasting time or quality-impacting encoding/decoding process.

Pierre L’Hoest, CEO of EVS “HBS and EVS have been working closely together for over 10 years providing the sports broadcasting market with technological solutions that answer the most demanding requirements during live event operations.” He adds: “This strong collaboration between a world class host broadcast event specialist and a leader in live sports broadcast technology has led to a cross-fertilization of live event productions offering even better content creation at a faster pace and increased efficiency.”