Fox Sports Mexico Taps Grass Valley for New Facility

Popular programming for the Fox Sports and Fox Sports+ Mexico network is now originating from a new high-definition production facility in México City, that includes numerous file-based production and distribution equipment and systems from Grass Valley.

The facility is designed to facilitate a totally tapeless workflow that features a multi-seat Grass Valley Aurora digital news production (DNP) platform for content creation and several Grass Valley K2 Summit production client workstations for 24/7 automated distribution of Fox Sports & Fox Sports+ Latin America programming. Fox Sports chose Grass Valley DNP products which span the entire content creation lifecycle, from acquisition to production, and playout, which includes feed capture, nonlinear editing, browsing, playback, server and storage, and archiving solutions.

Comtelsat, a Grass Valley sales, service, and support partner in Mexico, handled the project integration and operations on behalf of Fox Sports.

“We have been looking forward to this facility for a long time and Grass Valley was the obvious choice to help us achieve our goals,” says James Ganley, Fox Pan American Sports COO, for Fox Sports Mexico. “The value and reliability, along with the local customer support from Comtelsat, has made this project run very smoothly. We now have a state-of-the-art HD production facility that will grow with us over time and allow us to offer the best sports programming available anywhere. And we know we have a technology partner in Grass Valley that will be there when we need them.”

The massive broadcast facility project is one of the largest currently under development in Mexico.  The project is being carried out in two phases. Phase I of the project included the Aurora and K2 Summit systems, as well as a Grass Valley Concerto Series digital video routing switcher, Encore™ facility control software, Maestro™ SD/HD branding and master control system and hundreds of signal conversion modules from the Grass Valley GeckoFlex™ signal processing system product line.

“This impressive project reflects our commitment to the Latin American market and has resulted in an advanced production facility that everyone is proud to be associated with,” addsJeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Grass Valley. “Recognizing the value of high-quality programming for its viewers, Fox Sports Mexico has selected the right technology to allow its staff to work collaboratively while providing first-rate and timely coverage of the most important sporting events in Mexico and around the world.”

Phase II of the project saw the installation of  two Grass Valley Kayenne 2.5 M/E Video Production Center switchers and 12 LDK 3000 value-priced HD cameras to support two new HD production studios that are now fully operational.

“We are very excited to have integrated the Grass Valley Kayenne video production center in the new Fox Sports facility in Mexico City” says Manuel Arroyo, CEO, Comtelsat. “This will be the country’s newest and most modern facility giving Fox Sports the best technology available and the ability to compete with the world´s most important networks.”

The Grass Valley K2 Summit production client includes HD/SD operation, smooth slow-motion playback and up to four bi-directional channels in a rugged 2 RU chassis. The server features agile playback of DV, MPEG, HD, and SD content with built in aspect ratio conversion and can provide 20 hours of HD or 80 hours of SD internal storage or connect to a shared SAN (Storage Area Network).

The highly integrated Grass Valley Aurora suite for quick turnaround production features the continually improving Aurora Ingest, Aurora Browse, Aurora Edit, and Aurora Playout software applications.