EVS keys NBC’s return to NFL coverage

After a long absence from the NFL scene, NBC Sports has made
a roaring comeback with “Sunday Night Football” and its studio companion,
“Football Night in

America.”
In searching for a modular, scalable infrastructure that needed to take an
aggressive approach towards production, NBC chose EVS.

“When NBC and the NFL reunited in a new primetime broadcast partnership, we
knew that we had a daunting task ahead of us. Planning the process of
recording, editing and playback of the enormous amount of hours of game
coverage, post-game podium sound as well as NBC reporter interviews from the 14
weekly game sites became much easier when we saw an answer. From our experience
with EVS at the past few Olympics we knew that EVS was the best solution to
manage this massive undertaking,” affirmed John Gilmartin, NBC’s Director of
Highlight Operations.

The EVS XT[2] server is at the heart of the system, providing NBC with a robust
and blazing fast means to record and edit the huge amount of material that goes
into their primetime show. All of the feeds that are brought into 30 Rock are
recorded on one of the 16 XT[2] servers that have been installed in the brand
new state of the art Digital Production Systems area utilized by NBC Sports.
Metadata describing the action on the field is created by a group of loggers
using one of the 34 EVS IP Director suites. Producers are equipped with their
own individual IP Director browsing station that gives them the ability to
intelligently sort through the enormous amount of material that is being
recorded. This sort of interconnected workflow allows multiple producers to
collaborate on the various pieces that are part of the show.

For the producers and editors, the system is very flexible. They no longer need
to worry about where a feed was recorded. Once it is captured by any server on
the network, it is available to any and all outputs simultaneously. All of the
recordings are being stored near-line on a giant 146Tb storage array for future
use, utilizing the XStream application. The logs that are created every Sunday
are also stored, allowing a producer to see exactly how a player has performed
throughout the whole season. By simply clicking on an entry—even if it is from
weeks ago—any user in the facility can have instant access to the original
high-resolution content for use in today’s broadcast.

Gilmartin confirms that “the stability of the EVS Server system has been very
reliable. But the personal relationship with the EVS staff and their continued
support has been the most impressive aspect. Day or night, they are there to
help us. I cannot imagine managing this huge operation without the help of EVS
and their talented team.”