feature live news and sport
As we near the end of 2012, we can look back on a remarkable year for sport. From the Superbowl and the skiing world cup, to Euro2012 football and the dramatic Ryder Cup golf, it has been compelling viewing - and that is without mentioning the incredible Olympics and Paralympics in London. Andy Starks, co-founder of Tightrope Media Systems, reports.
experience. In turn, that means that these big international events call for a huge investment in technology and resources to cover them. There were 54 outside broadcast trucks involved in the Olympics, for example, and over 1000 HD cameras. The biggest single initiative in transforming sport on television, and still the factor most appreciated by audiences, is the ability to review the action. Immediate replays of key parts of the action, where necessary slowing it down to reveal precisely
The universal replay F
ew of us will have had the chance to witness these events in person, so we rely heavily on television to bring it into our homes for a realistic and dramatic
Above, Andy
Starks, co-founder of Tightrope Media Systems.
what happened, gives immediate insight and maintains excitement throughout the event. For a major sports outside broadcast, there will be a truck dedicated to replays, with 20 or more cameras recording independently, banks of highly experienced server operators (commanding very high freelance fees) and a specialist producer calling playbacks into the live output. As we know, the results are spectacular - provided you have the budget.
Below, ZEEPLAY in action at PBR.
What about smaller events and niche sports? What about those trying to replicate some of the armchair experience in the stadium itself? They have to use reduced budgets to engage an audience that is accustomed to extremely high production standards.
Tightrope understood this market need and used its long-time broadcast experience to develop ZEPLAY, an easy-to-use instant replay platform.
ZEPLAY
Designed for value, ZEPLAY is a purpose-built, four-in/four-out HD replay server that is fast to rig, practical to integrate and simple to operate. Everything is operated from a simple control panel and a single monitor.
Four HD-SDI inputs go through real- time encoders to generate 100Mb/s streams in industry standard formats and wrappers. 100Mb/s is generally regarded as the optimum balance between image quality and server
26 l ibe l november/december 2012 l
www.ibeweb.com
resilience. It is the maximum quality offered by the leading brand of live production server.
100Mb/s in AVI, QuickTime and MXF means that the content can be readily exchanged with the popular desktop editing packages like Avid, EDIUS, Premiere and Final Cut Pro. So you can record an event then use the synchronised feeds to quickly edit highlights packages, or you can prepare pre-show content and transfer it direct to the server for replay as required.
The capacity of a standard ZEPLAY is equivalent to 160 hours at 100Mb/s, which gives the producer 40 hours of game-time recording, with all four angles active. That means there is no need to clear the machine at the end of every event, and gives the user the chance to enrich a programme with material from earlier games, as well as pre-prepared packages.
The essence of the system, though, is as a replay server, and the core operation is aimed to be as simple as possible to achieve this aim. Built into the hardware is a multi- viewer which puts eight displays onto a single screen: the four input channels and the four output channels. In its basic operation these are directly linked: input A replays on output A, and the two displays are above each other on the multi-viewer. Signals are normalled through the ZEPLAY, so in a typical configuration four camera outputs would go to ZEPLAY and from there to the production switcher. The director then knows that on the button
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