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SportsCenter Kicks Off ESPN's Tapeless, Hi-Def Future
By Shirley Brady
June 7 marks three months to the day before ESPN's 25th anniversary on Sept. 7?and it's celebrating early with a landmark event. At 11 p.m. ET, ESPN flips the switch on its new digital center with the first high-definition telecast of SportsCenter.
My visit to ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Conn., last month caught the operation in a whirl of activity as the engineering, studio production and broadcast staff test-drove the new SportsCenter studio on the main floor of the digital center (at 120,000 square feet, one of the world's largest HD facilities) and de-kinked it for prime time.
SportsCenter's inaugural dress rehearsal in its new home the night before?with anchors Rece Davis and Linda Cohn serving as guinea pigs?had gone smoothly, ESPN VP, production operations and creative services Kevin Stolworthy told me over lunch.
As we made the five-minute walk from the network's collegiate-style cafeteria (there's even an outside court for impromptu hoops) to the digital center, Stolworthy admitted to expecting "a few glitches" in a real studio test. He vowed to push the new studio's systems hard and stretch the hardware and software by running real-time video with pre-edited packages and studio commentary.
Stolworthy walked me through the center, which eventually will house all of ESPN's Bristol-based studio productions. It boasts 17,000 square feet of production space for three studios.
When I arrived at the new SportsCenter studio, I was struck by how stunning the set looks. An anchor desk plus glass backdrops for projecting clips (and a TV monitor display dubbed "the tower of terror") have been designed to show off, but not overshadow, the show's new hi-def persona.
I couldn't help but notice the new studio's floor, which is crisscrossed with 4,000 fiber LED-emitting light strands that can form patterns or words (including, of course, "SportsCenter").
As I stood on the high-tech set I felt like I'd stepped into the movie Tron?so it wasn't a surprise to discover that the Imagineering gurus at ESPN owner Disney designed the disco-like light display underfoot, which grooves in time to the show's theme music. Stolworthy, a SportsCenter veteran who has overseen its transition from its old broadcast center digs, gave me a peek at the center's 6 million feet of cable?pointing out the purple-hued cable, which carries the high-definition video feeds?that will allow thousands of hours of studio and original programming to be produced in hi-def for ESPN HD.
As we walked through the center's three floors, we passed clusters of staffers getting the space ready for its eventual setup: three production control rooms, four integration control rooms and 10 master control rooms plus edit bays, meeting rooms and more.
Stolworthy explained how the new building is the heart of ESPN's move to a fully digital, tapeless, streamlined environment. The center will have 44 tape machines versus the 600 tape machines in the original broadcast center, and 68 servers with 3,000 hours of storage (versus no tapeless storage currently). All new video feeds can be digitized and stored on servers.
That library of digitally stored video will be accessible by desktop computers anywhere on ESPN's campus, Stolworthy said. This allows for quick selection and hi-def (or standard-def) editing and eliminates the need to hunt down videotape, freeing the production staff?at all levels?to focus on creativity.
Production staff and editors can select and edit clip packages and highlights?two-screen capability at the production assistants' workstations enables quick and smarter screening?with new HD graphics, including those newly enhanced for SportsCenter's digital center rebirth. They can cut unique video segments for other platforms, including broadband and video on demand.
As with any mammoth undertaking, the digital center and its first production has many parents?including Chuck Pagano, ESPN's SVP, technology, engineering and operations, who told me that he reviewed technology from the world's top television software and equipment vendors for this project, including BBC Technology, which is launching its state-of-the art sports media management system with ESPN.
I also chatted with Bob Eaton, SVP and managing editor, programming across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNews, who contributed his workflow perspective to the construction of the center. ESPN VP, strategic business planning and development Bryan Burns recalled lobbying for the digital center to be not only all-digital, but all-hi-def?and how ESPN president George Bodenheimer needed no convincing.
On June 7, that team, its colleagues and millions of sports fans will watch as ESPN finally unveils its digital dreams. Phase two: getting the center ready for the NFL's kickoff in the fall.
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