Southern Methodist University Gallops Into ACC With New ST 2110 Production Facility MustangVision to produce nearly 100 live games for ESPN, ACC Network, ACCNX By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Wednesday, September 25, 2024 - 2:41 pm
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Spencer Jones never could have imagined this.
When the assistant AD, MustangVision, first arrived on Southern Methodist University's campus in July 2016, he was a one-man band, producing video for an athletic department in its early days in the American Athletic Conference.
Fast forward eight summers, and Jones is heading a team of five putting the finishing touches on one of the most technologically advanced broadcast facilities in all of college sports for an athletic department on its way to join the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
It's enough to make even a video engineer emotional.
It's that birthed-a-baby type of feeling, says Jones, sitting in the neon-red glow of one of four video-production-control rooms in SMU's Armstrong Fieldhouse. There are a few moments when you're, like, I'm not going to tear up. Nope.' I sit there with a big old smile on my face. Then everyone else walked out of [the room], and I just put my head down and think, We did it.'
As part of the move to the Atlantic Coast Conference, Southern Methodist University has built an IP-based production facility, which houses four live-video-production-control rooms. (All photos: SMU Athletics)
They did it, alright. And they did it fast. Just eight months to be exact. A fully IP-based media facility was built from scratch with two souped-up control rooms dedicated to broadcasting up to a linear ESPN show and two smaller rooms: one of which can handle a streaming show for ACCNX or an in-venue videoboard show; the other reserved for videoboard shows.
To do all of that amidst the pressure of joining a Power Conference was an ambitious goal. Adding in an all-IP infrastructure might have been downright insane.
Two of the four control rooms are capable of linear shows. The other two are smaller rooms that handle live streaming and/or videoboard shows only.
Becoming a member of the ACC already meant stepping up the department's game in live video production, producing games for ESPN, the ACC Network, and the streaming-exclusive ACCNX. Despite the extremely tight timeline, however, Jones wanted to take the opportunity to go big and invest in a fully IP infrastructure, specifically SMPTE ST 2110. Although the standard has come a long way, the leap to IP is a challenging one. For Jones, both the timing of the project and the benefits it promised made the effort worthwhile.
ST 2110 has been deployed for almost a decade now, he notes. I felt, when it first got deployed, it was a slow, painful process. This didn't talk to this, this didn't talk to this, this didn't talk to this. That vendor doesn't have anything. That vendor has something. You either have to go fully isolated with one vendor and hope it all works. Or you can piecemeal it out and get a different package, but, if you did that, these two may not talk. I think [the industry] finally started knocking a lot of those [barriers] down, and, when the concept of this ACC Network move came up, the first thing that came to mind was I'm doing greenfield build. If I'm doing that, why be in baseband anymore?'
I have five venues, he continues. If I put switches and networks in, not only do I have the flexibility to go from any control room to venue, but I have the ability to go from venue to venue through control room without even the control room knowing what's going on. It can go point-to-point.
Each control room is paired with a Calrec Audio Argo S. The two linear control rooms have 48-fader consoles, the streaming/videoboard room has a 36-fader, and the videoboard-only room has a 12-fader.
The department's growth is naturally more than just in technology and facilities. MustangVision Productions has grown to a team of five with plans for adding a full-time engineer soon. The department added Director, MustangVision, Jordan Bettiol and expanded to three Assistant Directors, MustangVision: Sheridon McGrew, Breanna Sorensen, and Charles Young. Together, the crew will produce 80-100 live broadcasts this year (men's and women's soccer, volleyball, men's and women's basketball, swimming) and a full venue of in-venue videoboard shows.
Jones also credited James Justinic, a freelance engineer for playing a huge role in smoothing over the IP planning and execution. He's been absolutely fantastic in this project. Without him I probably would've pulled out the hair I don't have. If I didn't have him, I probably would've pushed harder on getting a full-time engineer here first. I would've done that almost nine months ago.
Jones has some advice for anyone undergoing a similar IP build: You really do need to immerse yourself in the technology. Once you understand the technology, you can be better informed for the decisions that you're going to have to make at probably a rapid pace, even if it's a multi-year project. And you have to have good administration that can back you.
SMU's new facility is home to a live set for studio shows and other content creation.
One way the project was able to be completed in eight months was employing two integrators to split up the work of the project. ZTransform oversaw control-room design and construction, and Digital Resources took care of athletics venues, fiber connectivity, and lighting.
As for the guts of the facility itself, MustangVision built the IP infrastructure on Evertz's NATX network-based broadcast-distribution solution. Multidyne's HoneyBadger added flexibility to router for venue
