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In TV production, replay servers are often located in the broadcast control room to manage multiple incoming channels and create summaries for multiple independent outputs. As a result, there is a need for simultaneous independent editing of clips and playback.
Standard workflow
Replay operators, who are responsible for markup and summaries during broadcast, typically interact with replay servers in two main output modes: PGM + PVW and Multi-PGM, which are the standard configurations on many platforms such as EVS.
PGM (Program) is an output that represents the main, broadcast-ready video signal that viewers will ultimately see. PVW (Preview) is an output that represents a preview of the video signal that is used to pre-screen or review content before it is actually broadcast or recorded.
PGM + PVW mode allows you to markup and output content, and is a common combination for TV production in general for one output channel. In Multi-PGM mode, you can use the outputs for two different playlists at the same time, for example, for two different output screens with different sports summaries. However, this mode makes it difficult to markup and work with clips, as more channels would have to be loaded for editing.
Our solution
SLOMO.TV replay servers already support both modes, albeit with some limitations for the second playlist in the Multi-PGM mode. However, we are constantly improving our platform and developing new solutions to enhance the quality of our systems.
Now we are introducing a much requested upgraded Multi-PGM option that has been in high demand from our users recently.
We are combining the two output modes, offering the unique ability of using PGM + PVW as well as a separate PGM playlist on one replay server. The solution ensures that all standard features of the SLOMO.TV replay server, such as search on all channels, remain available.
We are developing software that will allow users to create two fully functional PGM outputs and the ability to work with playlists, transitions, editing and markup functions simultaneously on the server interface. Even when the server is playing the PGMs, the operator can continue to work on the clips and summaries. This option empowers replay operators to independently play and manage two playlists and a preview.
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In the modern world of sport, the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system has become an integral part of officiating. This technology allows referees to review controversial moments and make informed decisions.
One of the most striking recent examples of the importance of VAR was the men's football opening match between the national teams of Argentina and Morocco at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The match ended 2-1 in favor of Morocco after the VAR disallowed Argentina's final goal. In this historic case, the VAR system helped to fairly assess the situation and make the right decision.
As the VAR technology helps to avoid mistakes and ensure fair results, it is becoming increasingly popular in world football.
More than just hardware
VAR is a complex system that includes an administrative component, technical resources and referees.
The administrative component consists of rules that define the procedure for using the VAR. This is an important element of the system, ensuring its efficiency and transparency.
The technical side includes the equipment required to operate the VAR system.
The most important element of this system, however, are the referees, i.e. the human resource. Referees must be well-trained, highly qualified and constantly improving their skills. Their professional life is one of continuous self-improvement.
Academy
Comprehensive training in VAR technology requires a system that allows judges to master the technology and improve as effectively as possible. SLOMO.TV's Academy system solves this problem. It allows football organizations of all sizes to train new referees, warm up the VAR team before matches and improve the skills of veteran officials.
Academy is a training server for TV and VAR teams and is already used by many sports leagues, federations, TV companies and broadcasters.
While standalone training systems are effective, football organizations still need to optimize their workflow and resources for maximum efficiency. As a result, they tend to look for ways to perform multiple tasks with minimal equipment. If possible, the hardware solution should be able to be used not only as a training system, but also as a VAR system during actual matches.
videoReferee®-FSK
SLOMO.TV offers a comprehensive VAR solution videoReferee®-FSK Football Starter Kit, designed to meet the current demands of modern sports. The videoReferee®-FSK system is ideal for leagues and associations at all levels, providing both a solution to existing needs and new opportunities for growth.
The system is unique in that it combines two functions: it can act both as an 8-channel videoReferee® VAR server and as an Academy training simulator. This solution makes it possible to train in the absence of live signals without the need for an external Academy server. An important feature of videoReferee®-FSK is the ability to warm up the VAR team before the match using the updateable library of training clips.
Built on a compact yet powerful 2U server, the system can also be "field-upgraded" to a 12/16 channel VAR system with the purchase of a temporary or permanent license. The server is equipped with 16 SDI I/Os, which allows it to be upgraded remotely.
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In August 2024, SLOMO.TV will release Slomo Launcher — a tool for managing and editing configurations and projects on SLOMO.TV instant replay and video refereeing servers. With Launcher you can easily customize your server for any specific use.
SLOMO.TV solutions feature a sophisticated hardware and software system with a wide range of functions to handle various tasks regardless of their volume or type.
Each broadcast task has to be specifically configured, and until now this has required the expertise of a qualified video engineer. Now, thanks to the Launcher, adapting the server to your needs has become a breeze! Slomo Launcher is designed for intuitive, task-based configuration of replay and video refereeing systems by non-experts.
With Slomo Launcher you could configure the system to your specific needs and capabilities, supported by your system hardware and software licenses and use the application to manage projects, fine-tune settings and perform diagnostic tests.
The graphical user interface (GUI) of Slomo Launcher significantly reduces the time needed for server configuration. Now you can do it without technical support.
Moreover, the Slomo Launcher interface supports multiple languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Russian and Chinese.
The release of Slomo Launcher coincides with the launch of the new SLOMO.TV software version — 8.1. The Launcher application will be provided free of charge to all users during their valid support period when upgrading to the new software version.
A powerful tool that allows you to customize the system for any task, Slomo Launcher is made up of several components that make it easy for operators and video engineers to work with both the server and the projects.
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Rapier.gfx is a versatile toolset for creating and managing all types of real-time graphics in broadcast and sports environments, supporting 1 to 16 synchronous UHD/HD/SD playback channels.
This multi-channel system empowers users to create intricate dynamic graphic compositions and playlists for traditional TV broadcasting, live streaming and sportscasting. In particular, Rapier.gfx supports synchronous playback, independent operation and remote control of venue information systems, including LED video tables, video walls and media facades.
Rapier.gfx comes equipped with an editor for graphic composition, offering multiple player options and synchronization management. This allows users to easily create dynamic and engaging visual experiences for cultural and entertainment facilities. With Rapier.gfx, professionals in the field of media production can unleash their creativity and deliver captivating content to audiences.
With Rapier.gfx, users can synchronize multiple media surfaces across different locations, ensuring a seamless and cohesive visual experience for attendees. Whether it's a sports event, concert, or entertainment show, Rapier.gfx helps professionals deliver high-quality and impactful visuals that enhance the overall atmosphere and engagement level of the audience.
Rapier.gfx stands out as a cutting-edge software solution that revolutionizes the design and creation process through its object-oriented paradigm and adaptable architecture. This innovative platform offers unparalleled versatility by supporting a diverse array of objects, including text, graphics, clocks, timers, live and pre-recorded video, sound objects, and more. Users can easily create, adjust, and manipulate a wide variety of objects, while also effectively managing rendering, playback, external signals, and data sources.
The flexibility of the platform allows users to tailor their designs to their specific needs, making it an ideal tool for both small and large projects. Rapier.gfx is particularly well-suited for multimedia presentations, live events, and interactive installations where precise synchronization and control are essential. Its intuitive interface and comprehensive feature set make it a popular choice among professionals in the media management and broadcasting industry.
Rapier.gfx excels in real-time video rendering, ensuring smooth and interactive output. This sets it apart from competitors, providing an unparalleled dynamic user experience. With Rapier.gfx, users can creatively bring their visions to life seamlessly integrating text, graphics, videos, and sounds.
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A FIFA VAR training course for referees was held at the Football House of the Kazakhstan Football Federation (KFF) on 10-14 June.
As fitness is essential for a referee, the specialists took part in practical activities. This included a physical test in accordance with FIFA standards. Experienced FIFA instructor Farhad Abdullayev led the course.
To make the VAR training sessions as realistic as possible, KFF chose to use the Academy system — a comprehensive simulator that works with multiple live camera signals. The compact 1U version of the SLOMO.TV's Academy generates video feeds similar to those from a real OB van at the arena.
FIFA takes great care to ensure that VAR implementation and training procedures are in line with international protocols. Therefore, FIFA provided special multi-channel clips of real football matches to be used during this course.
The VAR course programme also included the following theoretical sessions: "Game Management and Monitoring", "Hand Play and APP Analysis", "Ball In and Out of Play" and "Rough Play and Unsportsmanlike Conduct".
In total, over 100 local football match officials participated in the practice, including Premier League and First Division referees, assistant referees and acting VARs.
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As a super-technological organization, FIFA uses all the possibilities of video recording not only to make the game interesting and fair, but also to make it safe. For this reason, a Venue Medical Officer at every FIFA tournament must be provided with a replay tablet to play back video footage of any incidents that may occur.
Football players are often exposed to injuries caused by collisions with other players, the ball or pitch and ground equipment (such as barriers, anchors, goals, team shelters, dugouts, benches, flag poles), which can sometimes have a delayed effect on their health. For example, the player may suffer a partial fracture that isn't immediately felt, but may develop into a full fracture if the person continues to play. Head trauma is also notoriously dangerous if left undiagnosed and untreated. Some of the medical problems that may occur to football players on the pitch during a match are as follows: sudden cardiac arrest; fractures and dislocations; spinal injuries; head injuries and concussions; maxillofacial injuries.
According to the study "Epidemiology of injuries in professional football: a systematic review and meta-analysis", published in 2020, the overall incidence of injuries in male professional football players was 8.1 injuries/1000 hours of exposure. The incidence of match injuries is almost 10 times higher than the incidence of training injuries, and higher in international tournaments than in national leagues. As expected, lower extremity injuries were by far the most frequent location for an injury with an incidence rate of 6.8 injuries per 1000 hours of exposure. The thigh was the most commonly injured anatomical region followed by the knee. Furthermore, the most common type of injury grouping was muscle/tendon injuries.
It is very important that team physicians are able to record and identify such incidents. To this end, FIFA has appointed Venue Medical Officers to be present at all international competitions to assess the health consequences of injuries and the ability of athletes to continue competing after an incident. This can be done using either a dedicated video recording system or a remote independent VAR workplace configured to provide only the necessary feeds.
SLOMO.TV introduces a tablet solution based on a VAR server for medical tracking in sports. Using a standard wireless tablet running Android or iOS and connected via Wi-Fi, the Venue Medical Officers can freely access selected video channels to assess the medical situation on the pitch. The wireless connection allows the tablet to be used remotely from the VAR server.
The system is gesture controlled and allows a quick selection of the required channel to review the incident. To examine the situation as closely as possible, the video can be rewound/forwarded, played back at variable speeds, zoomed in and out, and the channels can be switched.
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Another CIS football association, the Kyrgyz Football Union (KFU), has chosen SLOMO.TV as the technology provider for its national project to introduce a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system.
Following previous implementations at the Kazakhstan Football Federation (KFF), the Football Federation of Tajikistan (FFT) and the Georgian Football Federation (GFF), the SLOMO.TV mobile complex - a VAR van based on the FIFA-certified videoReferee®-8F solution - has now become the first VAR system in Kyrgyzstan.
A SLOMO.TV training course on the VAR system installation and management was held from 10 to 14 June at the Kyrgyz Football Union (KFU) office in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Alexander Kalinin, one of SLOMO.TV's leading specialists in video refereeing, trained the representatives of the KFU Referees Department on how to set up and work with the VAR system, comprising an 8-channel videoReferee® server and Academy simulator.
The training consisted of theoretical classes on functionality, configuration and interaction with the system, as well as practical tasks performed on the Academy system.
The practical sessions included practicing interacting with the system, reviewing and analyzing different moments of the match in the RRA and, in particular, communicating between the VAR and other members of the video refereeing team via a Hollyland intercom system in different scenarios.
On June 20, the videoReferee® system was successfully tested at the Kurmanbek stadium in Jalal-Abad during a match between the U-16 youth teams Muras United and Barça Academy.
The VAR system was approved under the guidance of Asian Football Confederation's VAR officer Zhakhongir Saidov and representatives of the KFU's Referees Department - Spartak Danilenko and Artyom Skopintsev. All experts agreed that the tests had been successfully completed.
Introduction of VAR in Kyrgyzstan is a historic event for the country and Central Asian Football Association (CAFA). In the near future, the VAR systems will be implemented in a number of stadiums throughout Kyrgyzstan. This summer's CAFA U-20 Championship, to be held at the Kurmanbek Stadium in Jalal-Abad from 5-13 July, will see the first official use of VAR. Six national teams from Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are participating.
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After several years of testing, analyzing and refining the VR (Video Replay) system, EventsMedia Sp. z o.o. has provided a complete system for video support of referee decisions during the ORLEN Super League and ORLEN Polish Cup handball matches, both women's and men's, in the 2023/2024, 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 seasons.
A special team of experts selected from representatives of Superliga Sp. z o.o. and the team of referees of the Polish Handball Association defined very precise guidelines, requirements and expectations for the VR (VideoReplay) system for handball in Poland. The high bar meant that the best systems and technical solutions for this purpose had to be presented - they had to meet absolutely all the guidelines of the IHF regulations and take into account the specificity of handball competitions in Poland, the uniqueness of sports facilities and cooperation with TV broadcasters.
In response to the needs of this project, a team of experts from EventsMedia carried out a series of test matches, listening to the needs of the judges and jointly analyzing the possibilities and many alternatives of the system, in order to finally propose the use of optimal tools.
The final choice fell on world proven solutions from Slomo.tv and a dedicated video system to support refereeing decisions - videoReferee®. According to the integrator, the implementation of the system in each facility turned out to be trouble-free and the operation was exemplary. The judges greatly appreciated the intuitive 'user-native' interface, which allowed them to analyze the situation they were interested in within seconds, using all available camera angles or a selected camera, zooming in on the image via the touch screen and watching it in time-lapse. As a pioneer in the field of video refereeing, SLOMO.TV's entire range of specialized products can be found in every corner of the world in many sports disciplines, where we guarantee the highest quality in supporting refereeing decisions. Slomo.tv has been inextricably linked with handball since the IHF Handball World Championships 2017, where videoReferee® became the overall video judging system. Slomo.tv tried to be flexible in the testing process, so that EventsMedia could count on professional support from the structure of engineers of the department responsible for videoReferee® in the initial phase of the implementation.
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The BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 offline tournament, organized by the FISSURE studio with the support of the general partner BetBoom bookmaker company, took place from 4 to 16 February at the One&Only Royal Mirage Hotel in Dubai. Presenting the first major LAN Dota 2 tournament of 2024, the event has become a highlight in the eSports calendar, capturing the attention of fans around the world.
12 top teams participated in the tournament: 7 invited teams (Team Spirit, Team Liquid, LGD Gaming, BetBoom Team, Aurora, Gaimin Gladiators, Xtreme Gaming) and 5 teams from the regional qualifiers (nouns – North America and South America, Virtus.pro – Eastern Europe, Azure Ray – China and Southeast Asia, OG – Western Europe, Team Falcons – Middle East and North Africa).
The group stage was played from 4 to 8 February 2024 in two round-robin groups of six teams each. All series consisted of two games. The top four teams from each group progressed to the upper bracket of the play-offs. The remaining teams were eliminated.
The playoffs were held from 11 February to 16 February 2024 with a double elimination bracket. All matches except the Grand Final were Bo3, the Grand Final matches were Bo5. There was also a solo tournament on the 10th of February, which was won by a Team Liquid member.
The length of a match was unregulated and ranged from 20 to 90 minutes. A total of 48 matches were played during the tournament.
The tournament was streamed in two languages on Twitch with 360,000 peak viewers, there was no live audience. The SLOMO.TV team took part in the technical preparations for the tournament. To support the broadcasts, two separate production teams were assembled, each using a Dominator AT/3G server.
There were two independent Replay Operator (RO) workstations running at 3G 59.94p per server:
- The 1st RO workplace had 2 channels for observers who controlled what was happening during the game and 10 channels (5 for each team) for cameras recording the emotions of the players. It produced instant replays and highlights of the game. After the end of the game, the highlights were reviewed for analysis, edited and exported to the second RO workplace.
- The 2nd RO workplace worked with 2 channels that recorded interviews for subsequent broadcasts.
Dominator AT server, used during the competition, is the latest generation of the multi-channel recording and slow motion replay servers, which is deservedly considered to be the most powerful 4K/3G/HD system on the market.
The high performance of this relatively small (4U - 56 cm, 20 kg) system makes the Dominator AT server convenient for integration into any environment. Notably, support for a large number of 3G channels makes Dominator AT the ideal solution for e-sports replays, as demonstrated by the recent BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024.
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Due to the growing number of requests, SLOMO.TV has successfully integrated its multichannel recording and replay servers with the Ikegami UHK-X700 camera at x6-x8 speeds.
Support for the largest number of SDI I/Os in the industry allows SLOMO.TV servers to work with high speed, high resolution, high frame rate cameras. In particular, the Dominator AT Series, the latest generation of the multi-channel recording and slow motion replay servers, is fully compatible with the UHK-X700, one of Ikegami's UNICAM XE 4K HDR camera systems.
Dominator AT is deservedly considered to be the most powerful 4K/3G/HD system in the market. Its versatile platform is designed to work with a large number of channels, provide slow motion instant replays and recording for non-linear editing of large-scale productions. Support for a large number of 3G channels makes it an ideal solution for replays in e-sports as well. The high performance of this relatively small size and weight system (4U - 56 cm, 20 kg) makes the Dominator AT server convenient for integration into any environment.
The Dominator AT servers are integrated with Super Slow Motion cameras from most manufacturers and support various modes – standard 2x, 3x, 4x, Xtra Motion 6x and HyperMotion. The number of required SDI inputs depends on the camera speed. For example, 3x cameras require 3 dedicated 3G SDI video inputs.
Dominator AT/12G has a 4K support option, which is activated remotely, if necessary. The 4K software license opens the 6 Rec + 6 Search + 2 Play + FX configuration in replay mode and up to 6 recording channels for NLE.
The Ikegami UHK-X700 integrated with SLOMO.TV servers is a camera that combines high signal quality with versatile connectivity. Weighing only 5 kg, the camera can be pedestal or tripod mounted or operated over the shoulder. Its front end comprises three 2/3-inch CMOS UHD sensors with a global shutter to minimize artefacts when shooting LED screens or scenes illuminated with flash or strobe lighting. The HFR option supports up to 2x speed in 4K and up to 8x speed in HD.
The UHK-X700 can output UHD/HD video formats simultaneously.
The camera system supports such standard video formats and frame rates as 3840x2160p, 1920x1080p, 1920x1080i and 1280x720p, for both 59.94 and 50Hz. This is effective when shooting fast-moving subjects such as in sports. With 4K 12G-SDI and 3G/HD-SDI output, the UHK-X700 can utilize a wide range of video devices as accessories to enhance its operational capabilities.
Support for up to x8 speeds in HD is essential for modern TV broadcasting and sports video refereeing.
As always, SLOMO.TV keeps up with the demand and offers the most efficient solutions. Stay tuned to SLOMO.TV for more updates!
