ESPN's Operations Efforts for Season-Opening Mini' MegaCast Are Anything but Mini Four mobile units, Bristol-based control rooms support seven viewing options for Ohio State-Indiana By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Thursday, August 31, 2017 - 2:42 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
ESPN has placed its stamp on its coverage of the College Football Playoff over the past few years -and brought a new word into the sports-television lexicon - by offering fans the MegaCast, one of the most robust live video-production offerings in the industry.
In January, ESPN offered 14 ways to watch the CFP National Championship Game between Clemson and Alabama. Tonight, as part of its coverage of a college-football-season opener between Ohio State and Indiana, ESPN is dusting off the MegaCast for its regular-season debut, offering seven of the most popular MegaCast options. Internally, they're calling it a mini MegaCast, but don't be fooled, this production and operations effort is anything but mini.
ESPN offered the MegaCast on College Football Playoff games last winter, bringing fans 14 ways to watch. For the season opener between Ohio State and Indiana, fans will have seven broadcasts at their fingertips.
The MegaCast has become the ultimate example of how our company can take all of our different groups and work together to create this really cool product for fans, says Jarrett Baker, an associate manager for ESPN. No matter how you choose to watch a football game, when it comes to the MegaCast, we hit all of the options that you would like.
Mini but Mighty
Compared with the compound outside the CFP National Championship Game, sure, the space is smaller. However, ESPN has rolled up four mobile units outside Indiana's Memorial Stadium, including F&F Productions' GTX-18 (which will anchor the main game coverage on ESPN) and Lyon Video 3 (which is onsite to support ESPN's College GameDay) to support the efforts.
Also, since the truck-dock area is smaller than a CFP National Championship Game venue might offer, ESPN is using plenty of at-home, or REMI, production elements to help add to the collection of viewing options. The network is using a combination of fiber and satellite transmission, with a 12-path fiber mux out (PSSI Global Services is handling the encoding) from Indiana to Bristol, CT; a two-service satellite mux outbound that backs up the game and College Gameday; and four fiber paths coming back to site from Bristol.
BSI is on hand to support the production with five Blue Steel microphones, two RF handheld links, a pair of RF talent monitors, and wireless comms. An Illumination Dynamics generator is also positioned to add extra power for the expanded compound.
Seven Unique Broadcasts
The seven viewing options available to fans are the traditional telecast on ESPN, Coaches Film Room on ESPNNEWS, the Homers Telecast on ESPNU, and the All-22, Command Center, Data Center, and SkyCam feeds streaming on ESPN3.
The importance of the game, combined with its being on a Thursday, provides us with ideal conditions to utilize the MegaCast production for college-football fans, says Ed Placey, who is serving as coordinating producer on the entire MegaCast effort.
Coaches Film Room proved to be one of the more popular viewing options during College Football Playoff games. The show places current and former head coaches in one of ESPN's Bristol studios and allows them to break down the game in real time. An ESPN release even notes that, several times throughout the telecast, the show will remain live even when other networks showing the game go to commercial break. This will allow the coaches to continue to break down critical action that just took place.
In the workflow for the All-22 offering on ESPN3, the clean feed of the wide-sitting-camera angle will be fibered directly to Bristol, where the yellow First & Ten line will be inserted in a control room before the final production is sent off for streaming.
As for the traditional television production on ESPN, the network has deployed 14 game cameras, eight hard and six handheld. Two of the handhelds are RF and will be used heavily to offer unique camera angles for the Homers Telecast. There will also be one Sony HDC-4300 shooting in super-slo-mo. The game will be produced by Scott Matthews and directed by Jeff Evers.
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
26/04/2024
Dead Boy Detectives, a series from Neil Gaiman about a detective agency staffed by ghosts, debuts on Netflix April 25. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are in t...
26/04/2024
The Story Collective has gradually repurposed the former Mortlake Brewery to include production offices, workshops and sound stages
By Matthew Corrigan
Publi...
26/04/2024
Perkett joins the company following a 25 year career in product management, product marketing, engineering and user experience (UX) across multiple industries
...
26/04/2024
Teradek, the industry leader in wireless video transmitters and receivers, announced today the launch of new Bolt 6 LT 750 and Bolt 6 Monitor Module 750 RX with...
26/04/2024
NEW YORK Amagi has appointed Richard Perkett chief product officer (CPO)....
26/04/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced the results of the 2024 NAB Radio and Television Board of Directors elections. The...
26/04/2024
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. & NEW YORK Mattel has announced a deal to launch its first three 24/7 free ad supported streaming (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung...
26/04/2024
PORTLAND, Maine Viewers here can now receive the NextGen TV signals of five local stations with the launch of ATSC 3.0 service from host station WPFO, which is ...
ESPN's Operations Efforts for Season-Opening Mini' MegaCast Are Anything but Mini Four mobile units, Bristol-based control rooms support seven viewing options for Ohio State-Indiana By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
