The Australian Open Tennis (AOT) tournament is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events of the year – the other three being the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Known for always employing the very latest in technology during the event, this year AOT organisers Tennis Australia wanted to take viewer experiences to the next level both on the web and on the big screen at the tournament. For this they turned to Videocraft.

Videocraft Head of Engineering and Projects Nick MacLean explained, “Videocraft have been working with Tennis Australia for a number of years now and the scope of what Tennis Australia Productions do for the Australian Open Tennis grows with each event. For the 2018 tournament Tennis Australia wanted us to work with them and help boost their web and big screen coverage. In order to do this we developed a workflow design that enabled them to simultaneously leverage and expand the onsite edit facilities and integrate additional infrastructure to connect their edit and asset management systems to the host broadcast and rights holders.”

Part of Videocraft’s success with Tennis Australia and the Australian Open is due to its good working relationships with all of the tournament’s stakeholders.

MacLean added, “This year we were able to implement digital workflows for ingest and conversion of ENG footage and facilitate access to the host broadcast court, press and interview coverage. We also added in a number of Premiere Pro edit suites and an EVS backend and server system for delivery of finished edits, highlights and colour stories to both the local big screen coverage and various digital media platforms.”

In total Videocraft supplied and installed Premier Pro edit suites, EVS Ingest, transcoding, asset management, playout and delivery systems. They also supplied and installed 10Gb Ethernet Cisco switch infrastructure to tie multiple storage systems and all the servers and components together.

John O’Neill from Tennis Australia added, “With their clever solution Videocraft met all of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open’s technology requirements seamlessly and efficiently. Uniquely they also used and integrated Tennis Australia’s permanent facilities with the temporary facilities they supplied in order to work within existing boundaries whilst greatly increasing the capabilities of the system. I’m happy to say the Videocraft solution performed very well, editors were able to access media rapidly and turnaround edits for delivery very quickly and efficiently.”

Having worked with Australia’s top sporting bodies for many years Videocraft has honed its unique set of skills and workflow knowledge to meet the high standards and requirements of events such as the Australian Open Tennis.

Nick MacLean concluded, “Videocraft’s bespoke workflow design ensures all of our clients, in this case Tennis Australia, get a tailored workflow solution that meets all the requirements of their brief. Our years of experience help us know what will and won’t work for different situations. At this level and with ever-increasing multi-platform viewing needs, there is not one a one size fits solution so we work with the whole production process from capture, ingest, logging, asset management, edit and delivery to ensure a smooth process all the way through to broadcast.”