Eurosport Teams with Euphonix

European Sports Giant Equips New HD Studio with System 5-B

Palo Alto, Apr 2nd 2008

Euphonix, a world leader in large-format mixing consoles and control surfaces, announced today Eurosport, Europe's leading sports multimedia platform, has installed a new System 5-B mixing console in their new HD studio located in Paris, France.

Eurosport France broadcasts all major international sporting events. The System 5 console will manage the feeds in HD, in stereo and in 5.1 for those countries who currently broadcast in HD. The 40 fader mixing system with two DF66 DSP SuperCores featuring the 100% Secure Changeover Option will broadcast up to four 5.1 feeds and as well as their corresponding specific stereo mixing simultaneously.

 “We were seduced by the Layouts feature the Euphonix System 5 offers; instead of classical layers, ‘Layouts’ allow you to re-arrange your surface to show only the channels that you need to work with at a push of a button. The way metering and routing is clearly displayed over the hi-resolution TFT screens,” said Yves Bouillon, Head of the HD Project for Eurosport. “Most of the time we work with 5.1 feeds that we can now easily assign to master faders and then spill anywhere on the System 5 surface's strips.”

On the System 5-B each channel strip is designed to control a single source or a multi-format source or group like the 5.1 network feed. This feed may be controlled on a single fader with linked EQ and dynamics processing to all the six elements. This Euphonix invention allows the elements to be spilled out on to the control surface at the touch of a button, which allows the individual elements to be controlled separately as needed.

This is the second Euphonix console for Eurosport who purchased their first Euphonix CS3000 in 1998. “The CS3000 has been working fine for 10 years now and we will keep it On-Air at the same time the new HD control room goes online,” explained Yves.

“We are proud that Eurosport has selected Euphonix and 44.1 for a second time to give them all the support and expertise they need with this new HD studio.  Eurosport is one of the first Sport European TV channels to start broadcasting in HD and in 5.1 for different countries and languages. We think the quality of the System 5-B is unsurpassed in management of multichannel content,” said Paul-Henri Wagner, 44.1 systems integrator manager.
Eurosport airs 59 European countries and broadcast in 20 different languages. The channel offers viewers varied sports such as UEFA Cup football, the Paris Dakar Rally, the Olympic Game, Le Tour de France and the French Open. The new HD studio is scheduled to go online May 2008. The broadcaster’s ON-Air debut will be France’s Grand Slam tennis tournament.

About Eurosport Group
The Eurosport Group is the leading sports multimedia platform in Europe. Eurosport, the leading pan-European TV channel, is transmitted in 20 languages reaching 112 million homes and 240 million viewers across 59 countries. Eurosport 2, the new generation sports channel, broadcasts to 27 million households in 11 languages across 43 countries. Eurosport Asia-Pacific, launched in 2006, already reaches 9 countries in the region. Eurosport Network of websites is Europe's number 1 online sports destination, with 7.6 million unique visitors per month across all 8 websites, including four co-branded sites with Yahoo! and dedicated sites in France, Russia, Sweden and China. Eurosportnews provides up-to-date worldwide sports news transmitted worldwide. Eurosport Mobile offers live-streaming, WAP and I-Mod services with breaking sports news and results. Eurosport Events is the group's expert division in the organization, management and promotion of international sporting events.