Avid helps World Cup develop extended basic feeds

By Fergal Ringrose
Editor, TVBEurope
Courtesy of TVBEurope magazine
World Cup HBS has chosen Avid to supply and install a workflow solution to produce its Extended Basic International Feed (EBIF).
“Following the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan during which HBS has performed successful production workflows, the decision was made to go for the next World Cup in Germany using Avid Technology for the production of program features that are part of the EBIF Show Feed,” says Olivier Meaux St Marc, Super-feeds Production Manager, HBS. “These features consist of edited packages featuring teams, coaches, players, fans, officials and FIFA World Cup flavor and excitement.

HBS Production and HBS Engineering conducted a series of evaluation and analysis in the course of 2004 and 2005. At the end, the decision was made to set up a complete tapeless infrastructure at the IBC in Munich using a main Media Server to which one Avid Unity and four Media Composer Adrenaline NLEs are connected. HBS made the choice to edit with Avid post production technology to benefit from storage and shared media solutions. Another reason is that most craft editors are familiar with the technology and little training will be required, says Meaux St Marc.

The ENG crews shoot material in both standard and high definition using Panasonic P2 storage cards. The SD material is shot at DVCPRO50 625/50; HD material is shot at DVCPRO100 1080/50i (the vast majority of the material is shot in SD).

The crews edit the material on laptops running Xpress Pro HD software capable of using P2 cards. QuickTime reference files of the finished sequences and some selected rushes are created. These are then encoded to compressed Windows Media 9 file formats using Telestream Flip Factory, also loaded on the laptops. These compressed files are delivered via file transfer (Broadband, WiFi, intranet etc) back to the main IBC in Munich. All media and projects are archived by the ENG crew onto local external USB hard disk drives.

The ENG media files are received at the IBC via two HyperMAP receiver PCs. These deliver the files to a pair of Telestream Flip Factory servers. One server deals with ENG features, the other deals with ENG rushes. The Flip Factory servers transcode the media to MXF IMX40 with up to four audio tracks. These files are delivered to the correct Unity workspace and also to the EVS system.

The editors based at the IBC re-edit and finish the ENG footage using Media Composer Adrenaline systems. Additional source material can be drawn from the EVS Media Server, other local tape and CD sources.

Once a sequence is finished, it is delivered as a file transfer to the EVS Media Server where additional voice-over is added prior to final
transmission. Selected HBS production staff have the ability to view the sequence on the Avid system prior to delivery to the EVS Media Server.

Installation of the technology for the EBIF Show started in the middle of March 2006. Avid had previously helped HBS with its project planning by setting up and testing the system configuration 1:1 in Dublin. Avid project manager Thomas Buerle is confident that everything will run smoothly. “The bidirectional file transfer
between the EVS media server and Avid Unity works absolutely perfectly,” he says. “We are sure that this will open up new opportunities for us in sport production.”
For more on the World Cup visit TVBEurope’s Web site, www.tvbeurope.com