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In addition to servicing CBS Sports HQ and football streaming, the new studio is fully equipped to host CBS’ linear broadcasts.
As CBS Sports and CBS Sports Digital continue to expand their portfolio of combined live sports programming, the companies are exploring new ways to efficiently share studio and control room resources. With that in mind, CBS Sports Digital has reopened its studio at Fort. Lauderdale, Fla. and Stamford, Conn. will undergo major technical enhancements to their sets and control rooms in time for the 2022 fall football and Italian soccer seasons.
Fort CBS Sports Digital Studios. Lauderdale and Stanford have reopened with new LED walls before the NFL season.
“We were watching [studio operations] From a much higher level, not just streaming shows, but all of CBS sports, soccer shows and the entire CBS family.” Aaron Gillespy, Director, Engineering, CBS Sports Digital“And we wanted to build a facility that could change and adapt, not just today, but in the future.”
In addition to 24-hour live studio programming on CBS Sports HQ, the facility also plays a major role in streaming UEFA Champions League, Serie A and other international club football on CBS Sports and Paramount+ . Upgrades at the two studios created parallel setups across the Fort. Lauderdale and Stanford locations with a consistent look across Serie A, CBS Sports HQ, Fantasy Football Today, Sportsline programming and more.
“From a linear perspective, we saw this as a great opportunity for the streaming team and the linear team to work together and work together,” he said. Mike Francis, VP, Engineering and Technology, CBS Sports“We don’t have an additional studio space footprint here at the CBS Broadcast Center and BMW building. [in New York City]Having a multi-purpose facility to leverage is great for linear production teams while creating a better product for streaming. ”
In the studio: LED wall Three-Curves offer versatility and quality
With three curves on set and an LED wall with an agile control room design, two nearly identical studios can transition seamlessly from one show to the next in minutes.
“The great thing about these facilities is that you can mix and match,” says Gillespy. “You can have football in the morning, CBS Sports Headquarters in the afternoon, football right behind it, and highlights from Headquarters and other groups in the evening. You can go from one show to another just by switching.”
Host of the CBS Sports HQ spotlight, Amanda Guerra on the new set (Photo: Mary Kouw/CBS)
With a 35-megapixel, 1.8 DPI LED wall, shows like CBS Sports HQ can produce high-quality studio designs that rival the level of linear programming on CBS and CBS Sports Network.
The studio is equipped with five Sony HCP-P50 cameras with Canon CJ15ex4.3B, CJ17ex6.2B, and CJ20ex5B lenses. 3 Ross Video CamBot Robotic Camera Pedestals. 1 Egripment TDT Crane. 1x ARRI Artemis 2 camera stabilizer with Vislink wireless Tx/Rx and RCP control.
513 Partner/Principal Tom Lenz Participated in studio design, system integration was done and led in-house CBS Sports Digital Lead System Administrator Keith PryorOther key vendors include Fuse and DetaiLED Solutions for LED panels and Showman Fabricators for set manufacturing.
“After the first graphics rehearsal, we just didn’t get the feel we were looking for,” says Gillespy. “But the flexibility of the LED wall allowed the graphics group to build a completely new look for the set within a week, giving it a completely different feel. It would have taken months to change in the past, there was no paint color change or gear swap, it was just the graphics group that designed it and made changes almost instantly bottom.”
Inside the control room: for live productions big and small
The control room is built around a Ross Ultrix Accuity switcher, featuring Ross Xpression for on-air graphics, Ross Tessera for in-studio LED screens, an Evertz DreamCatcher replay system, a Grass Valley GVOrbit routing/orchestration system, and a Calrec Brio audio console. is equipped with .
“We can move from a more linear style of football production with a full-staff control room and studio to a more efficiently scaled HQ production with a back-to-back show,” says Francis. ” [CBS Sports Digital] The team did a great job making it a flexible control room space. Smaller shows can be run by just a few people, or they can fill all the benches with a full crew, as seen in large linear network productions. They were flexible and did a great job. ”
SportsLine host Tommy Tran inside the new studio (Photo: Mary Kouw/CBS)
To meet the tight timelines of launching before the start of the American football and Italian soccer seasons, the studio ran in HD-SDI, with SMPTE ST 2110 and an upgrade path to 4K and HDR throughout the facility It has been.
“We came to HD-SDI to meet that deadline, but there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t have 2110 on both at any given time,” says Gillespy. “Just flip a switch and everything has an upgrade path. The wall itself supports 4K, the processor supports both 4K and HDR, the lens is already 4K, the camera is running 1080i, but Licenses are available for 4K, so if we decide to go in that direction, we are all set.”
Connect everything from Connecticut to Florida to New York to the cloud
Fort. The Lauderdale and Stamford facilities are relayed together with his CBS broadcast center via the same RTS communication system. In addition, all three facilities are interconnected for IP video transfer.
Additionally, CBS Sports Digital’s use of the Grass Valley GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) for cloud-based master control and playout is one of the most innovative aspects of its live production operations. It not only provides a central workflow for both studio facilities, but also allows master control operators to manage multiple in-game feeds directly from home.
“It’s completely cloud-based for that part,” says Gillespy. “Any match being played in the cloud will remain in the cloud. There is no reason to move it back to the facility. Master Control, [SCTE-35] Ad Insertion, Slate, and Overall Launch [production] Or stopping it is all in the cloud. With all 32 of his UEFA Champions League teams playing at the same time, one operator would be running each of his four events from home.
“You can spin up channels based on the need for that event,” he adds. “If he has to support CBS Sports in hot weather, he can just click a button and spin up new channels as needed. It’s all very nimble, very fast and very redundant. And it’s multi-regional.
Now that the new studio is up and running, CBS Sports’ linear TV and digital teams are weighing next steps and potential synergies between the two. Although Francis says there are no formal plans to produce a linear TV show from Fort for CBS Broadcast or he CBS Sports Network. Now in a studio in Lauderdale or Stanford, he says:
“Whether it’s a large-scale event or a possible studio collaboration, we work hand-in-hand more and more each year,” adds Francis. “We really think this will bring the digital side to a level of facility that matches what we are doing on the broadcast and cable side. Having more resources in the CBS family has really helped the production team, especially as football programming becomes more commonplace on both digital and linear platforms. They will.”
Editor’s Note: For more information on CBS Sports Digital’s cloud-based master control and playout workflows, continue to visit sportsvideo.org.
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