"The circle of business" and Emmevi
EDB, European Broadcasting Development, is a holding company whose business was established in 1996 to devote to sports graphics.
In 2005, the company structure was newly shaped to the present "business circle".
Renato Pizzamiglio one of the 3 partners points out: "The great explosion of the information technology over the last 7/8 years, made us think and invest in dedicated software platforms to meet any need of the broadcast production world.
There are four key areas: content production, content aggregation, content management, and delivery. For each of these broad areas EBD provides a specialized company able to provide concrete answers.
November 2014
For the contents creation Emmevi & Partners was founded in '96, and deals with sports graphics; Clonverk also deals with graphics but in the entertainment markets, and data management. Virtual Solutions (ViSo) takes care of the virtual productions, and DNG, the latest acquired in August 2012 by Mediaset deals of regional ENG crews, made up of about 70 people: in practice, a news agency that prepares and sells news where needed.
Pizzamiglio points out: "In addition to DNG, through an agreement with a company in Naples, Rewind, which owns several OB-Vans some operating up to 10 cameras, we are now able to make a full production delivery.
In practice, our group is unique and we can give all the answers to these markets in terms of content production."
At the level of aggregation and content management Microplus is the internal software house that creates convergence between systems and has a great awareness of all stages of collection and processing of data. It deals with all the software platforms and also the necessary interfaces to existing instruments, such as transponders placed on racing bikes, automotive wiring circuits for timing systems, etc.
In the segment of delivery the company owns approximately 60% of SIES (formerly Elettronica Industriale) which manufactures transmitters and radio links, and the other company Digiten, which is responsible for managing the transmission sites.
The core of EBD is the sports graphics specialized associate company, Emmevi. Here graphics means a deep knowledge of the medium. Nothing to do with computers, but the dynamics of the game, the specialty, and fine-tune of the mechanism of production, getting to know the sport specialty and its rules.
All softwares are proprietor and investments in R&D are heavy. In-house software development takes care of Real time data updates, Live 3D Graphics and Virtual Ads, Remote Titling Services, Highlights service, Instant replay and virtual linesman.
All Emmevi packages point to a database that can be, for example, the list of participants in a discipline, categories, statistics, and alike.
Of the utmost importance is the "data recovery" and its management: for example, in a diving competition all handhelds touchscreens, provided for the judges are followed by an application which needs to retrieve all the relevant data at a given time. Emmevi was among the first to use transponders on race bikes, which are essential for certification of passing on the various stages.
EBD and Emmevi are also present in motor races where 1/1000º second is crucial. A touchscreen monitor is in the hands of the journalist in the tribunes and get all the information needed in real time to produce a story, filtering the data he needs, historical palmares, records of each driver, etc.
In any sports competitions the organizer or the broadcaster asks to study a graphic set of elements which Emmevi creates in titles, backgrounds, captions, time stamps, etc in the style requested by the customer. The system operates in real time 3D.
