Dorna Sports: Fast Finish
Dorna’s race DVDs have more features than ever before, including multiple camera angles and more comprehensive menus. “DVD Studio Pro has allowed us to be far more creative in DVD authoring than before,” says Soler. “It is safer and easier to create templates, menus and more complex scripts. And it integrates with Final Cut Studio. This has allowed us to increase our productivity.” The Dorna team estimates a 75 percent increase in productivity since they started using Final Cut Studio.
Streaming Speed
The motogp.com site lives on about 20 servers in Barcelona. Designed on Macs using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash, it’s one of the most exhaustive sports sites on the web, containing race info clear back to 1949, when the first MotoGP bike blazed around a track. The info is in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, German and Japanese. The site is like a tireless polyglot sports reporter, covering each race live, sending lap times, rankings and video around the world.
“The website is updated during and after each race,” says Jordi Sais, Computing Director with Dorna. “We transmit the data and footage via satellite to the main office in Barcelona.” From there it’s incorporated into the site using custom Dorna software and Adobe Flash. The company also has a live timing server, which serves up lap times and race standings on the fly to fans everywhere. It’s a bewilderingly complex system, but it maintains stability, thanks to redundancy.
Dorna also serves up audio and video podcasts through motogp.com. Right now they come in three flavors — an audio podcast with race recaps, a video podcast featuring action clips and a behind-the-scenes documentary-style video. “We see podcasting as a way to interact with the fans of MotoGP and offer them something different,” says Sais. “Above anything else, it gives fans the opportunity to access the latest of MotoGP. It is a reliable, consistent and cost-effective way to distribute content to fans.”
Making those podcasts is simple, thanks to Final Cut Pro. “We make our video podcasts using Final Cut Pro,” says Sais. “It’s very easy to export video clips in the iPod format. We can add voiceovers using Soundtrack Pro and record new voice tracks using GarageBand. Apple has everything we need to turn our content into podcasts quickly and easily.”
Twist the Throttle
Although the Dorna team has MotoGP pretty well covered, the company is always looking for new ways to bring the action to fans. The next step includes a re-designed website featuring streaming QuickTime video and even more data. Dorna’s editing team will also incorporate more multi-angle features into their DVDs. “DVD Studio Pro lets us work with several sources at once,” says Icart. “We can include the feeds from the bikes and the best camera angles. Viewers will be able to switch between more camera angles while they’re watching the race, from the bike cameras to the track cameras and back again.”
Dorna editors use Final Cut Studio to cut race highlights for network television and create DVDs of each race.
Dorna can currently ingest feeds from four bikes at once. Eventually, the crew will be able to record footage from every bike on the track. It’s a lot of footage to deal with, but it will allow fans to follow their favorite racers step by step through each course. “It’ll almost be like riding on the bike,” says Sendra-Vives. The team will use multi-angle layering in DVD Studio Pro to give viewers the additional choice. “DVD Studio Pro is perfect for working with different camera angles,” says Sendra-Vives. “It’s easy for us to layer different channels of video and create dynamic DVDs that are extremely popular. We sell hundreds of thousands of DVDs every year.”
In the end, Dorna strives to bring MotoGP fans as close to the track as possible. That means transitioning to high-definition video, feeding more mobile phones and offering more in-depth podcasts and coverage. “The Macs and Final Cut Pro are ready for high def,” says Icart. “And they’ll be there when we expand our podcasts. Apple technology will be an integral part of Dorna in the future and it will let us do things we only imagined doing in the past.”
