Live from IBC: EVS highlights new C-Cast Workflows via Xplore; Xfile gets upgrade

The EVS stand at IBC is giving show attendees a chance to see how the C-Cast platform continues to evolve, moving beyond the original concept of a great way to quickly create a multicam interactive experience for viewers to a production tool as well.

“We now have three C-Cast workflows,” says Sebastien Verlaine, EVS, marketing manager, EMEA. “The first is creating multimedia for the end user, the second is a contribution workflow where access to content can be shared among different production facilities, and the third is where it can be used to access and gather content to create media packages that can published to a catalog for distribution.”

At the core of the new workflows is EVS’s new browsing interface, C-Cast Xplore, which gives broadcasters, producers, and editors access to the live multicamera recording feeds and clips on an XT server from remote sport centres. This allows them to review, create clips, and select content that was previously inaccessible. C-Cast Xplore is a Web-based interface and is fully integrated with EVS’s C-Cast infrastructure to provide remote access to content recorded from the live venue on the XT servers. It offers significant cost saving by reducing the number of people necessary on the shoot without compromising quality.

C-Cast connectivity allows C-Cast Xplore users to review live server content as it is recorded and selects clips shot from any camera angle. This material can then be transferred in HD by the production team back at the studio for archive or postproduction or to enhance the live production.

The goal, says Sebastian, is to continue to speed up the process of creating compelling content for halftime or postgame shows because the production team back at the home-broadcast facility can spend more time choosing finding high-quality content. They can also have more work completed from a centralised location.

“A producer can be sitting in a studio, and, as long as they have some sort of Internet connection, they can leverage the lo-res proxies and choose the timecode and camera angles they want,” explains Phil Stein, EVS, sales manager, The Americas. “They can then have the high-resolution clips sent back to the facility [from the servers in the OB units]. By the time the event is over, they have the clips.”

Also releasing soon will be Director’s Cut, a system that ships the EDL along with camera iso and programme feeds. Instead of having to lay down the programme signal and match frames in edit, the EDL is imported, showing everything the technical director did, from cuts to graphics insertion and dissolves.

“They can spend more time fixing creative rather than spending an hour setting things up,” says Stein.

Another big improvement at the show is a new version of Xfile that makes it easier than ever for content to be transferred from XT1 servers to XT2 and XT3 servers. In the past, clips from XT1 servers would have to be reclipped and then transcoded. But Xfile allows the user to simply hit restore, and the file codec will be auto-discovered and converted. It can also be converted to multiple versions and codecs depending on the need.

And last, look for Multireview to be released early next year, allowing the lo-res proxy to be leveraged in new ways.

“Someone sitting in front of the interface can look at every available angle in the truck of a play and then jog and review clips without interrupting the production workflows,” says Stein. “And they can then make a request for the hi-res content, leveraging the horsepower of the XT3 server.”

And helping leverage the XT3 even more is 10-Gbps connectivity. By the end of the year, it will be available via an external frame, but, sometime next year, it will be internal to six-channel XT3 servers.