EVS Readies for Busy 2010; DVCPRO HD Support Expected Soon

By Ken Kerschbaumer

With the announcement that EVS will support the Panasonic DVCPRO HD codec the company continues to make it easier for sports and news broadcasters to fold ENG-style content into EVS servers. And in even better news the support won’t have to wait until the fourth quarter, as originally stated. “Our engineers told us today that support should be available by the second quarter,” says Nicholas Bourdon, EVS marketing and communications director.

Up next for EVS? Support for AVC Intra, something that should be expected in 2010.

Sportscasters at NAB should take a look at the Multicam 10 software package that includes support for 3D live replays, slow-motion, and clipping functions. In the second quarter XT[2]-LSM systems will also have full 1080p support at 50/60 Hz (for both recording and playback) as well as full control of Hypermotion HD cameras through the RemoteLSM controller, including slow-motion and clip management. In addition an on-the-fly offside line creator is available on all standard Remote LSM controllers.

The rest of 2009 will be a busy one for EVS as the company gears up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2010 World Cup, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and more. “We expect to see increased investments from customers starting this summer,” says Bourdon.

The Olympics, for example, will see an increased use of XT[2] Web, a system that allows sportscasters to use Internet connectivity to review low-resolution proxy video and build clips. An XML file then is sent to the EVS server to build the high-resolution clip. An application for the iPhone has also been developed to allow producers to see clips remotely.

Also new is CleanEdit 3.00, supporting HD and SD mixed content and managing different resolutions in the same timeline, allowing on-the-fly editing with no transcoding. The up and down conversion is automatically handled by CleanEdit during editing and playout to match the pre-selected resolution of the project. “This is a relevant new feature which speeds up the entire process”, says Robert Bury, General Manager of CleanEdit business unit at EVS,” as it allows operators to avoid thinking about the resolution during the editing, and to focus on their real job.”

The new “metadata fields name edition” feature allows customizing metadata profiles according to content types and applying custom data models. You can extend existing static data models with additional metadata fields to suit your own needs. Obviously, metadata profiles can be imported and exported as XML files.

CleanEdit 3.00 also integrates a new character/title generator, which allows you to create, using pre-defined and customized text/graphic templates, text and graphic inserts with no need for any rendering. It can be used to prepare some editable graphic titles, for instant insertion into the timeline.

“One thing we continue to show is that we’re keeping on the cutting edge of technology,” says Bourdon. “All our systems are extremely reliable and include free service.”