University of Miami upgrades production capabilities with Vizrt graphics technology

The University of Miami Athletics Department builds two new broadcast control rooms featuring Vizrt graphics and Panasonic cameras to put their sports program on ESPN 3.

Republished from the original article by The Broadcast Bridge.

If you want to meet the high standards required by the broadcast streaming channel of ESPN 3 Sports, even the top university sports programs have to step up to the challenge of state-of-the art production facilities, and none have met the requirements more successfully than the University of Miami's Miami Hurricanes as part of the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

For the coverage of the 2015 Fall season including 23 scheduled broadcasts they recently installed two brand new control rooms and purchased a portable production system to provide coverage of the University's multifaceted sports program.

The control room includes components from Vizrt, NewTek and Panasonic.

As part of the TV agreement with ESPN, we had to produce our sports programs up to the standards of ESPN 3, Jason Layton, senior associate athletic director for communications & sales at the University of Miami told The Broadcast Bridge. In the past we had streamed our games on our own web site, but ESPN 3 gives us a much wider audience and stronger streaming technology to many more delivery sources including all the mobile platforms that are popping up these days.

Layton and his team started the project in late March of last year with a temporary control room through which they broadcast 12 baseball games, then over the summer they completed the full installation in their athletic center. That let them even then schedule 45 broadcasts for the fall season.

It was all financed by the University, Layton said. This is great for our school's recruiting, for giving exposure to the student athletes, and to share the experience with our vast alumni body.

Layton initially hired a 6 person professional crew to run the control rooms, but in the fall they began a program where 20 students shadowed the pros and learned to use the equipment.

In the long term we intend to use this as a teaching lab for the students to get training on the broadcast systems, he said. That gives us extra return on the capital investment into this equipment and it's great experience for the students.

The compliment of equipment in the two control rooms includes:

2 Panasonic AV-HS6000 Switchers and 1 NewTek TriCaster

2 NewTek 3Play 425 systems for replay

5 Panasonic AK-HC3800GSJ Studio cameras

2 Panasonic AJ-PX 5000 ENG/Studio cameras

5 Panasonic AW-HE130 PTZ cameras

3 Viz Trio graphics systems

3 Viz Multiplay multiscreen control system

The graphics tools includes three Viz Trio character generators and three Viz Multiplay multiscreen control packages.

Layton wanted to use Vizrt graphics equipment as the fulcrum of the look of the University of Miami's broadcast to match the on-air style of ESPN. In fact, the graphic contingent includes three Viz Trio character generators and three Viz Multiplay multiscreen control packages, one of which is tightly integrated with a NewTek TriCaster system.

ESPN is already using Vizrt for their broadcast graphics along with Ross systems, Layton said, but we felt Vizrt had the functionality and look that would best suit the image we wanted to create.

Michael Rocha, director of content services at Panasonic Experiences was the contact person for the University of Miami Athletic Department broadcast control room installation project.

There is obviously a big push in the country to build broadcast control rooms for streaming, Rocha told The Broadcast Bridge. Traditionally when schools invest in sophisticated production equipment they opt for the lower end equipment to make it easier for the students to learn to use. But this installation at the University of Miami is the first ESPN 3 dedicated control room in the country that decided to use Vizrt graphics equipment.

Rocha told TBB that some schools feel Vizrt is too expensive and too complicated. But the University wanted to create as professional a sports production program as possible, even on the student level.

The reality is that although Vizrt is somewhat complex to set up, it is not hard to use, Rocha said. So part of our program is called Panasonic Dynamic Canvas', which is our trademarked name for a program where we meet with the University, discuss their needs, set up the initial training, and stay with them throughout the season. What we are doing for the University of Miami is setting up the ESPN 1 graphics package, the same as used for the College World Series, and modify it for use by the students. That gives them real world experience during their student life.

Rocha calls it giving Vizrt equipment some temporary training wheels.

We reprogrammed the high end Vizrt graphics package to work with the school's production program on a day-to-day basis. It's one of the additional services Panasonic provides during the installation process.

Rocha is as proud of the result as if he were a Hurricane alumnus.

With this new production set-up, Jason Layton got every one of the the University of Miami's basketball games, every one of the volleyball games, every one of the baseball games and every soccer game broadcast on ESPN 3, Rocha beamed. That's about as good as any school can boast.

Read the original article from The Broadcast Bridge.

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