BT Sport Installs New Avid HD Workflow

August 13, 2013

Avid has announced that, together with Timeline Television, BT Sport has installed an Avid end-to-end tapeless asset management, storage, and audio and video editing workflow that will allow the new channels to create and broadcast countless hours of sports footage.

BT Sport’s new channels, which include BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN, are housed in iCITY, in the former International Broadcast Centre (IBC)at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

BT has fitted part of the IBC building with three new studios, a control centre, editing suites and  an audience holding area. The new Avid workflow is made up of: an Avid Interplay production asset management, which will be BT Sport’s central media hub; Avid ISIS 7000 shared storage, 25 Avid Symphony® Nitris® DX editing stations, a Avid Pro Tools HDX-equipped dubbing suite and a 32-fader ICON D-Control mixing console.

Timeline Television will provide a complete managed service to BT Sports, part of which will be running and managing the end-to-end sports production workflow. Timeline engineers and craft editors will be based on-site to operate the workflow with BT Sport staff.

Tom Cordiner, vice president international sales at Avid, said: “Avid solutions are deployed by broadcasters around the globe who require total transparency across their media assets in order to efficiently access, distribute and monetize them in today’s content-hungry competitive media landscape. We’re delighted that BT Sport has chosen our solutions to be at the heart of its new facility to take advantage of these benefits. During the London 2012 games, broadcasters based in the IBC proved just how robust Avid solutions are at handling hundreds of hours of live media in a 24/7 fast turnaround environment, so it’s fitting that BT Sport has taken up residency there.”

Jamie Hindhaugh, chief operating officer of BT Sport, added: “At the core of our new studios build is a spirit of collaboration that brings the best of industry – and sometimes competitors – working together toward a common aim: to make the BT Sport studios a world-class hub for the best ideas and talent. We believe talent attracts talent and our partnership has helped us to foster that mind-set.”