EVS’ XT4K servers to power NEP Europe’s new Swiss UHD-4K OB trucks

UHD-41 to become first OB facility to use EVS’ Epsio Paint telestration in 4K.

EVS has announced that NEP Europe has selected its latest 4K live production technologies for two new UHD-4K supertrucks. The state-of-the-art OB facilities will be used to cover Switzerland’s Raiffeisen Super League football and allow pay TV broadcaster Teleclub to deliver a more immersive ultra-high definition viewing experience to fans.

NEP’s UHD-41 and UHD-42 will both run four XT4K live production servers to power the creation of Teleclub live 4K replay and highlight content. The servers will provide instant media sharing capabilities between the two trucks, using EVS’ XHub3 high-bandwidth media sharing network with 10 Gigabit connectivity. They will also run EVS’ XFile3, a 2U chassis hardware and software system that has been optimized for UHD-4K workflows to meet all file-based requirements. This acts as an integrated file-based media gateway and back-up solution enabling live UHD-4K growing files. These are recorded on removable drives or network storage, and also allow file-based media to be imported in to the XT4K servers with UHD up-conversion if needed.

The two new NEP OB trucks will also include Epsio Paint telestration effects system implemented in a UHD-4K configuration for the first time. The trucks’ EVS technology allows operators to not only create replays, but further enrich sports broadcasts by adding attention-grabbing telestration in a higher resolution. Effects such as player highlights, spotlights, lines, arrows, magnifiers, zones and free-hand drawings are added to any game using the same LSM Remote. This brings further creative and operational benefits to NEP’s live productions.

Launched at IBC 2016, the XT4K is EVS’ first dedicated 4K production and replay server and offers four configurable I/O 4K channels with EVS’ unrivalled loop recording technology. The XT4K provides both 12G SDI for single wire UHD-4K or Quad-SDI with support of 2 Sample Interleaved (2SI) and Square Division. This delivers a live production backbone that offers an amazing 4K viewing experience with the speed, quality and reliability of EVS technology. The XT4K has the capacity to reliably record over 30 hours of 4K-UHD content and comes with the same functionality of existing LSM production systems.

Flast, Flexible and reliable

“These two new 4K supertrucks for Switzerland will meet the growing demand from our customers in the region to acquire premium live content in Ultra HD. It’s important that the technology integrated within them is not only industry standard, but also fast, flexible and reliable. This is why we selected EVS. We already have several hundred EVS systems within our worldwide fleet and NEP is committed to providing the best service and latest technology to our customers”, said Paul Henriksen, president of NEP Europe.

Laurent Petit, VP Product at EVS added: “NEP has long been a partner of EVS, and is one of the most well-known and trusted facilities providers in the world. We’re delighted that they’ve recognized the business and operational benefits that our latest XT4K live production solutions offer in addition to NEP’s extensive fleet of XT3 ChannelMAX servers. And with the addition of Epsio Paint 4K and XFile3, NEP can benefit from EVS’ Connected Live ecosystem, giving production teams better and faster access to their live content.”