Post Production
Integrated HD workflow fuels
sports TV expansion
Versus meets a huge production and post-production enabling the staff to work quickly and
challenge with the help of Avid.
easily with rich HD material.
ce hockey games can be life- network had been outsourcing much of its Going with the expanded workflow
I
changing events. Just ask Paul post services to outside vendors. "We were
Koopmann, director of growing so rapidly, most post houses Within months of completing the new
engineering for Versus, a national couldn’t keep up with us," says Koopmann. 25,000-square-foot post-production
sports network available in more than 74 "So we made a pitch to build our own facility located in a waterfront building in
million homes. When the network acquired facility to meet future HD post-production Stamford, Conn., Versus was presented
the rights as the exclusive cable television needs, since that is where everything was with another major challenge. It needed a
home of the National Hockey League (NHL) headed." new studio, fast. "We were at the end of
in 2005, it sparked the beginning of an era The workflow used to produce live our contract for studio space, and our
to re-brand the network from the Outdoor events and taped segments now includes options were limited," says Koopmann.
Life Network to its current moniker, an end-to-end Avid broadcast environment "We looked at using production [facilities]
Versus. for ingest, content creation, media sharing, we had in other geographic areas -
To accommodate these changes, the and publishing of finished pieces to Philadelphia, Denver – but, we decided to
network recently designed and built new multiple outlets, including cable networks, keep it here and stay connected to our post
post and production facilities to produce mobile devices, video-on-demand, and the environment. Now our production facilities
its expanding slate of sports content in Web. Key components include an Avid are in the same building, right below the
both HD and SD. Versus (a wholly owned Interplay nonlinear workflow engine, an post operation."
company of Comcast Corporation) is also Avid Unity ISIS shared-storage solution, The HD-ready production facility was
the cable television home of best-in-class multiple AirSpeed servers for HD/SD ingest built in near record-breaking time based
events such as the Tour de France, and playout, and several Media Composer on the designs of the three-person, in-
Professional Bull Riding, and World Adrenaline and Symphony Nitris offline house engineering staff. "We began
Extreme Cagefighting, among others, and and online editing systems for cutting and construction on July 3 of last year and
airs collegiate sports featuring nationally finishing programs in HD or SD. All HD were on air October 3," says Koopmann.
ranked teams from top conferences such as content is edited using the Avid DNxHD The seamless integration of post and
0
.
the Pac-10, Big 12, and Mountain West. 145 codec, which combines top-image production operations in the same facility
Prior to the NHL acquisition, the quality with highly efficient storage, has had several benefits for Versus in age 7
terms of speedy content delivery and the
"We were growing so rapidly, most post houses
ability to add live, late-breaking content to
couldn’t keep up with us."
shows in progress. Koopmann explains:
"The staff can easily share content, create
Paul Koopmann, director of engineering, Versus
content, and move content into a studio
Continued on P
68 IBE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008
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