Global Television Acquires 31 SONY HDC Cameras

Global’s new Sony cameras will be deployed on diverse broadcasts including Big Brother 2013 for the Nine Network and NRL for Nine and Fox Sports.

The agreement, which extends Global and Sony Australia’s longstanding partnership, was reached at NAB 2013 and encompasses 10 HDC-2400, three HDC-2500 and 18 HDC-P1 point-of-view (POV) cameras.

Marc Segar, Director of Technical Services at Global Television, said: “With Global’s ever-expanding slate of challenging and complex outside broadcast and studio OB productions, we need the latest and most robust HD camera chains. Sony’s HDC series more than meets that brief, allowing us to deliver 24/7 productions such as Big Brother and the fast live-to-air sporting action that is NRL to the exceptional standards our clients and viewers expect.”

Garry Rhodin, General Manager of Sony Australia’s Professional Solutions Division, said: “It’s part of the Sony ethos that we continually try to develop our customer partnerships as well as our technology in order to provide the very best in equipment, service and support for the long term. This latest sale of HD camera chains to Global TV is a very good example of that philosophy in action. As a result we look forward to supplying Global with their HD acquisition requirements and more, for some time to come.”

Global Television will use its new HDC-2500s for slow-motion capture during NRL games. Five of the HDC-P1 POV cameras will also be deployed on NRL, enhancing Global’s existing camera resources.

For Big Brother Global has added 10 HDC-2400 and 13 HDC-P1 POV cameras – which allow high quality night-time images, essential to documenting round-the-clock events in the Big Brother house. They bring the total number of Sony HD cameras used on the program to 35.

The expanded camera inventory joins Global’s new second-generation Sony Trimaster EL OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays in the Big Brother control room and technical positions. OLED displays work without a backlight and offer deep black levels and extremely high contrast ratios, even in low ambient light conditions – essential to ensure viewers don’t miss a second of the goings on.

Global Television also recently installed a Sony MVS-8000X vision mixer into HD4 – used on NRL and other major outside broadcasts – making the HD supertruck one of Australia’s most powerful OB vehicles.