BYU Broadcasting Uses EVS for New Broadcast Center and HD Mobile Truck Unit

The BYU Broadcast building is the newest structure sitting on the university campus

Owned by Brigham Young University, BYU Broadcasting has incorporated the latest EVS technology to elaborate their brand new Broadcast Center and new HD mobile truck. The university is a private coeducational research institution owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

BYU has invested in a new HD mobile unit integrating a diverse range of broadcast equipment, including EVS technology such as two “six-channel” XT2+ servers along with an XF2 and an IPDirector. Furthermore, their new 100,000 square foot media production Broadcast Center is also implementing a wide array of EVS production tools: 2 – XT2+, 2 – XS, 2 – IPDirector and 2- XTAccess to enable tapeless production amongst truck, studio and post facilities.

The BYU Broadcast building is the newest structure sitting on the university campus and is now up and running. All of their operations, including studios, editing and transmission facilities, will be now located under one roof.  BYU TV can now broadcast in full HD all over the world and face the new digital era.Their new truck called “Big Blue” produces local events, ranging from BYU sports competitions to musical performances to seminars and festivals.  During an event, EVS operators create clips on the XT2+ and XS servers in both studio and truck.  These clips are managed by IPDirector users and are sent to Apple Final Cut Pro for refined editing, using XTAccess as the transfer mechanism.  Content from the event, such as camera isos and edited highlights are preserved on XF2 drives and the Studio’s Isilon NAS for archive. The “Big Blue” truck has the ability to connect to the studio system via Gigabit Link. The student operators can use IPDirector and XTAccess to move media from truck to studio or from studio to truck.  The LSM and IPDirector operators in the truck will send the studio clips for playback or for craft editing by the 20+ Apple Final Cut Pro stations in the BYU Broadcast Center.

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“Thanks to the EVS technology, BYU’s studio can create its own content and send edited packages to the truck for playback” says EVS Americas General Manager Frederic Garroy.  This process involves a network of IPDirectors, XTAccess servers and an EVS Database server.  Garroy continues to say that “this highly efficient workflow is desired and utilized in many of today’s professional remote productions.  Integrating the power of the studio with the remote truck allows operators to use the full horsepower of edit and storage systems inside the BYU Broadcast Center.”

Local editors can directly benefit from the truck’s production capabilities as they are able to send their finished edits directly to the truck for playback.  The truck can also send their “best of” content directly to the Isilon in the studio, eliminating the need to use any video tape or any removable storage.The new truck was built to increase and improve content production for transmission to the 60 million households that tune in to BYU TV, KBYU and BYU TV International. In addition to serving as a remote production unit, the truck can serve as an additional control room at BYU’s campus to handle overflow productions.

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“This is an exciting new day for BYU Broadcasting says Brandon Smith, Chief Technology Officer at BYU Broadcasting. These new facilities provide us with content creation and distribution potential that is unprecedented in our history.  We are anxious to leverage all of the capability of the EVS network in our facilities to help make this happen.”