Arqiva has built a new HD playout center for ESPN in the U.K. that is being used for the playout and distribution of Barclays Premier League soccer and for the playout and distribution of 11 ESPN channels to countries throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The dedicated HD playout center is located at Arqiva's Chalfont Grove Teleport in the U.K.
"ESPN chose Arqiva to build, staff and manage a state-of-the-art dedicated HD playout center which would handle its premium sports content for Europe, Africa and the Middle East," said Barrie Woolston, commercial sales director at Arqiva Broadcast & Media in a statement. "Their decision leveraged our expertise and infrastructure for global playout and distribution of live content in high definition."
Woolston added that "Arqiva ingests and provides live playout of a wide array of sports action for ESPN, including major football, rugby, basketball, motorsports and American football events from locations around the U.K., Europe and the USA."
ESPN worked with Arqiva to design and direct construction of the HD playout center with Dolby Surround Sound technology. It features four live playout suites, a multi-channel playout pod, production areas, a supervisory control area and an edit suite.
Arqiva's infrastructure and teleports provide international satellite and fiber connectivity and there is a dedicated fiber IP circuit to ESPN's headquarters in the USA for rapid sharing of content between ESPN's staff at various locations.
"The Playout Centre is manned by Arqiva technicians trained to work specifically and exclusively with ESPN's content and they work very closely with ESPN production and engineering personnel in both the U.K. and U.S.," Woolston added. "By working together in such close cooperation we can efficiently and effectively manage and control live HD feeds into ESPN programming at any time."
