IBC 2017: VIDELIO is expanding Fox Sports layout facilities in the Netherlands

VIDELIO is expanding Fox Sports playout facilities located in Hilversum, the Netherlands. The platform which was originally deployed by VIDELIO in 2015 and upgraded in 2016, will be made fully redundant. A staging platform will also be implemented to validate future upgrades and new workflows prior to their roll-out.

This expansion follows the increased number of channels distributed from Hilversum. In addition to the original fifteen channels dedicated to the Dutch market (6 live, 9 on-line), three new outbound feeds have been added: two channels dedicated to the 22 countries Fox Sports beams into Africa and one master feed for Fox’s affiliates.

“With the growing number of channels we now reach millions of viewers in Europe and Africa, we had to take our playout center to the next level, but we needed a partner that we trust to manage such an upgrade in a live 24/7 environment such as ours,” says Mr. Jinne Tania, Broadcast Specialist Fox Sports channels at Eredivisie Media & Marketing CV.

Working in such a mission critical environment, VIDELIO teams ensured the deployment of new infrastructure and servers, as well as the re-patching of over 600 ports with no service interruption.

“As systems integrators, our mission is to work with our clients throughout the life-cycle of their technology platforms,” says Malcolm Robinson, Chief Operating Officer at VIDELIO Media. “From that standpoint, working with FOX SPORTS has become a true partnership based on mutual trust, whereby we support their requirements and help them achieve their goals for the long-run.”

The transmission and playout system has been designed upfront with ‘best of breed’ components from major suppliers including Axon video processing, EVS and Harmonic servers, Imagine Communications router, Juniper Network equipment, LDM control system and Pebble Beach automation. The platform leverages VSM to allow for any operational position within the playout center to be assigned to any operational task. As a result, any workstation can be allocated to any task in the workflow, be it QC operations, monitoring, editing or ingest.

The user interface was designed to give a graphical representation of the facility so the operators could easily select their seat and assign the workflow offering ultimate flexibility of space and resource.