Wexler Video has released details of its fast, reliable, “live-ingest” workflow technology, used recently to boost the NFL’s Super Bowl XLI and 2007 Pro Bowl broadcasts. Similar technology is also being used for various award shows and specials during this awards season.
Wexler Video provides production equipment, services and support across the nation to live broadcasts such as sporting events and award shows that utilize the live-ingest workflow—allowing broadcast quality resolution and on-time reliability. NFL Films needed the features of a standard NLE but on a broadcast timetable. The margin for error in the live environment with hundreds of millions of viewers was nil. Wexler Video answered the call with a unique solution based on a combination of AJA and Final Cut Pro products and included Avid's flagship storage solution the Unity MediaNet. This enabled flexibility, reliability and control on a level that otherwise could not have been achieved.
Similar custom solutions are also being provided to upcoming award shows and specials that require this technology to meet the demands of live broadcast. Wexler CTO, Joel Ordesky, comments, “Our custom solutions are built off a base setup wherein a number of Avid Adrenaline systems are tied together using a Unity MediaNet and Media Manager. All work is done at broadcast resolutions as speed and reliability are paramount when it’s a live environment.”
Live-ingesting blends "broadcast" production principals with traditional post-production techniques to create a one-of-a-kind solution for the live event. In a live-ingest workflow, it is imperative to have the ability to take in every frame of footage in realtime. Depending on the broadcast’s parameters, a combination of solutions can be used to get the feeds to ingest as fast as possible. Capture and playback of multiple streams of video and audio in broadcast resolutions is simultaneous.
Chris Thompson, Wexler president & CEO, comments, “For many of our clients in a tape workflow, ninety percent of the footage that is recorded goes unused, but it is imperative to the creative process to have as much content as possible to choose from. Live ingesting reconciles this by allowing a production to take in every frame of footage in realtime, review, edit and output—all without ever needing to review a tape or waiting for the lengthy batch capture process to complete. The camera original is then relegated to simply an archival medium.”
