Evertz Drives Channel One Russia’s Broadcast of 2018 FIFA World Cup

Channel One Russia, in partnership with Evertz, domestically broadcasted the first ever FIFA World Cup in Ultra High Definition (UHD), High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Dolby Atmos Audio.

Channel One is Russia’s leading television broadcaster that distributes sports, entertainment, news and cultural programming across the Russian Federation and around the world. Channel One offered all 64 Games in UHD/HDR/Dolby Atmos format on smart TVs via OTT (Over The Top) distribution, as well in all 11 cities hosting the games at the FIFA Fan Zones. In addition, Channel One broadcasted 27 games on a separate 24/7, UHD/SDR (Standard Dynamic Range), Dolby Atmos audio, regularly scheduled channel for the duration of the Championship which was distributed over the air (DVB-T2), and via Satellite and Cable TV providers.

The Ostankino Technical Center in Moscow served as the broadcast host facility from June 14 to July 15 2018 for the FIFA World Cup. UHD and HDR Television broadcasts feature higher visual resolution, color depth and contrast ratio, and when combined with Dolby Atmos audio, enable a completely immersive viewing and listening experience.

To facilitate the delivery of this immersive experience the Ostankino Technical Center is equipped with an all IP Evertz SDVN Infrastructure. The core of this routing infrastructure is two redundant Evertz’ EXEVSR40 switch fabrics. The EXE-VSR40, with its high-capacity, non-blocking all IP architecture, is the only IP switch fabric that could meet Ostankino Technical Center’s demanding requirements.

The Ostankino Technical Center also utilized Evertz 570IPG gateways for ingesting signals into the IP core and 3067VIP IP Multiviewers for signal monitoring. The Evertz 7814UDX Up/Down/Cross Converter with its advanced UHD and HDR processing capabilities was also a key signal flow component.

Evertz provided signal ingest and playout capabilities with its portfolio of file based products; Mediator-X for Media Asset Management, OvertureRT LIVE for Playout, OvertureRT MC for ingest, and Render-X for transcoding file based assets for QC review.

Live Production requirements were handled by Evertz’ DreamCatcher™ Live Production Platform. The DreamCatcher™ DC-458DE was utilized for 4K production tasks including ingest, highlight capture and instant replays.

Evertz’ MAGNUM Orchestration and Control platform was utilized to provide a unified point of control and resource management for the entire infrastructure.

“The FIFA World Cup is the premier global broadcasting event. Having an infrastructure that supports the latest technologies including HDR, UHD and Dolby Atmos audio was a critical requirement,” said Vladimir Ignatov, Director of the Broadcast Department for Ostankino Technical Centre, “Evertz’ SDVN platform was the only solution that met our requirements and was a critical factor in the success of this event.”

“We selected our next-generation infrastructure to utilize IP technology as it gives us the flexibility, agility and scalability we require to meet our always evolving requirements,” said Dmitry Volkov, Chief of Tech Department for Channel One Russia. “Evertz’ SDVN solution enabled us to meet the critical requirements of the FIFA World Cup broadcasts and will meet our needs for years to come.”

“Thanks to the vision of Ostankino Technical Center, Channel One management and the hard work of the engineering staff of Telerent and Okno TV, a dream was turned into reality – Russia had UHD/HDR/Dolby Atmos coverage from the most watched channel in Russia. I am very pleased that Evertz was able to provide a solution for this great event,” said Max Popov, Sales Director for Evertz.