Purdue University Commits To Grass Valley Live Sports Production Technology

The University’s in-house production company has invested more than $1 million in Grass Valley production equipment to bring fans attending Boilermakers  sporting events in Ross-Ade Stadium and the soon-to-be inaugurated Mackey  Arena  the highest quality multi-camera production to rival any collegiate or professional sports stadium. In addition, Hall of Music Productions purchased a Grass Valley-based fly pack rig that allows for HD video production capability across the entire campus, including its namesake venue, the Elliott Hall of Music, a 6,000-seat proscenium theatre.

Purdue University's purchase includes a wide variety of Grass Valley production equipment to support a vast number of production services. This includes a K2 Dyno™ Replay System with K2 Summit™ Production Client and 4.8TB of internal storage, a K2 Dyno Production Assistant (PA) system, Kayenne™ and Kayak™ production switchers, and  four LDK 8000 Elite and four LDK 4000 Elite HD cameras, each with Grass Valley’s new 3G Transmission system offering maximum transmission flexibility. This makes Purdue one of the first users in North America of Grass Valley's 3G Transmission signal distribution system, allowing Purdue crews (students and freelance professionals) to use the same LDK cameras with either triax or fiber cabling.

The first use of the new Grass Valley 3G equipment was used during the Notre Dame at Purdue football game on October 1.  Hall of Music Productions provided the video board coverage of the ESPN-televised game, as well as producing content used on the school’s athletics website (purduesports.com) and the weekly coach’s TV show.

“Our students and  staff are very excited to have access to the new Grass Valley equipment, because it brings us to a new level of production capabilities,” said Stephen Hall,  Director, Hall of Music Productions, adding that other Big Ten Conference schools are watching what they are doing and could soon follow suit. “We feel we have received a lot of value for our investment and can now produce videos of the quality that our fans expect.”

“Grass Valley’s production equipment is very affordable and is being embraced by a number of major Division-1 college sports programs looking to compete with the best in-stadium experiences in the nation,” said Jeff Rosica, Executive Vice President of Grass Valley. “Purdue takes its video production capabilities as seriously as its athletics, so we’re proud to be a part of the school’s efforts to improve its content creation activities.”

The school will also open its newly refurbished Mackey Arena for the start of the 2011-2012 basketball season. The Grass Valley equipment will be used to produce live and pre-recorded content to display in the arena's center-hung large screen displays, as well as the hundreds of smaller flat panel displays at concession stands and other locations throughout the venue.

“The K2 Dyno Replay System will get a real work out here, and together with all of the new gear will provide fans with a better game experience,” added Hall. “Purdue is happy to be working with Grass Valley and expect this partnership to continue for many years.”

The Grass Valley K2 Dyno Replay System consists of the K2 Dyno controller coupled with the K2 Summit Production Client server. It is designed to help sports producers and other professionals capture live events in crystal-clear HD resolutions and instantly play them out at variable speeds for critical analysis during fast-paced events.