Newsletter from 29/07/2014
Commonwealth Games Ultra-HD showcase for BBC R&D
MOBILE PRODUCTION
AXON Controls and Monitors CTV's OB3 & 11
The new truck commissioned to work on CTV’s recently renewed cricket contract with Sky Sports has been future-proofed to be 4K-capable as a matter of course. It supports 28 cameras and can accommodate 34 production staff. The unit is 3Gb/s throughout which is supported by AXON's signal processing equipment. One of the Synapse modules in use is the GDV080 a 3Gb/s Monitoring distribution amplifier with down converted SD or analog video outputs. In case CTV will have a requirement for 4K production AXON can provide 4K up and down converters which fit in the same form factor as the 3GB/s modules.
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Vision View Sees Bright Future with Gearhouse Broadcast’s OBLite
Vision View’s first use of OBLite was for a local basketball tournament in South Africa, but the trailer will mainly be used for its live rugby and football coverage. “We were looking for a flexible, mid-sized OB that could be parked anywhere. We looked at the smaller OB vans but they didn’t quite match our needs, but OBLite fitted the bill,” said Mafadi Mpuru, managing director at Vision View. “One of the main considerations for us was having zero compromise on quality. Also any investment had to be something with up to date technology that we can use for more than just a few years. Gearhouse Broadcast delivered a solution that was cost effective but met all of our requirements.”
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TNDV Upgrades Production Quality for University Graduation Ceremonies
TNDV recently brought its mobile production expertise to the campuses of Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, achieving these goals and more for their spring graduation ceremonies. TNDV transitioned both commencement productions to HD for the first time, vastly improving image magnification quality for the large attending crowds. The company also streamed the live ceremonies worldwide to ensure families, friends and alumni could tune in from anywhere. According to Nic Dugger, owner and president of TNDV, an increasing number of his clients across education, government and corporate verticals are recognizing the quick return on investment that comes with upgrading the production quality and taking the event to an external audience.
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Cobham’s Wireless Transmission System Proves Its Live Production Seaworthiness
Cobham, in conjunction with Dubai-based technology solution provider GloCom SNG, installed transmitters on two race event chase boats and a helicopter, a receive and transmit ship, plus onshore receive systems at the ADYC headquarters and ‘Nation Towers’, the two skyscrapers near the southern tip of Abu Dhabi. According to GloCom Senior Engineer Rakesh Mishra, “Cobham’s transmit and receive systems worked perfectly. Reliable, high quality video and audio was sent and received from the chase boats and helicopter throughout the race from all the supplied links.
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STUDIO PRODUCTION
Camerobots Opening up New Perspectives
When the Tagesschau news bulletin made its debut broadcast from the newly opened studio at NDR on Easter Saturday 2014, the occasion also constituted a baptism of fire for a host of hi-tech equipment. Ensuring optimum presentation were an 18-meter-wide media wall and, suspended from the ceiling, three steerable camera robots supplied by Camerobot Systems. As many as 20 editions of Tagesschau are transmitted from the studio every day, in addition to the bulletins from the digital news channel tagesschau24 and various programs in a magazine format – Tagesthemen, Nachtmagazin and Wochenspiegel. The new studio has made the static style of presentation a thing of the past. Two large desks and ample freedom of movement in front of the giant media wall allow for a much more graphic presentation of the news than ever before.
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AJA Ki Pro Rack Delivers Spot-On Recording for BlueScreen Every Time
Launching a successful business out of a natural talent for compositing, Bob Kertesz founded BlueScreen LLC three decades ago. The company specializes in live, on-set blue/green screen compositing and multi-cam productions for high profile gaming companies and studios such as EA, Disney, Warner Brothers and Viacom. A core component of BlueScreen’s business involves live blue/green screen compositing for press events prior to the launch of major films, and for this niche market, Kertesz has established a specialized setup comprising high-end cameras and Ultimatte® hardware, with AJA’s Ki Pro Rack at the center of the workflow for reliable recording and playback.
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Broadcast Pix Part of New Video Call Center Solution for New Genre of Production Workflow
Inventor Tom Wolzien company received a patent for VCC on July 1. A 45-year television veteran, Wolzien serves as a consultant for large media organizations through his company, Wolzien LCC, and is the lead independent director for TiVo, Inc. Since last year, Wolzien and his team have been testing the VCC system by producing TalkCenterAmerica®, a series of call-in shows covering a variety of topics. “VCC is right at the intersection of social and mass media, TV and the Web,” said Wolzien. “What’s unique is that the system doesn't just handle a single IP video call, but it’s designed to handle multiple video calls simultaneously, each with the power of its own computer – essential for any live caller-based TV program.”
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SPORTS
Getting Crowds Closer to the Action of 'Le Tour de France'
While more than 5 million fans lined the roads of Yorkshire for the opening weekend of the 2014 Tour de France, relatively few got close to the action itself. For those who could not, help was at hand in the form of large LED screens powered by LEDView image-scaling technology from Calibre UK. The key screens were supplied by two companies – Lightmedia and Big TV – both of which specified Calibre's LEDView530 as their large-display image scaler of choice for the Grand Depart.
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EMF with Grass Valley LDX at the Tour de France 2014
The 101st running of the Tour de France covers a total distance of 3,664 kilometers through 21 stages. For the riders, the physical and mental challenges are hard to imagine. For Euro Media Group, the firm responsible for the overall wireless coverage, production challenges are also incredible. This year, to address the challenge, the company is using five brand-new LDX WorldCam cameras from Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, to provide up-close footage from five motorcycles that follow the action throughout each stage.Bruno Gallais, Euro Media Group international business development head for wireless production facilities, says that the use of Grass Valley LDX Series cameras on the five motorcycles tracking the race is one of the primary changes to its RF configuration this year. “Each year, the pressure to provide higher quality, ‘heat-of-the-action’ coverage increases. The LDX Series cameras are very powerful, very high quality; we are very happy with their performance.”
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HuskerVision Kicks Off an Enhanced Fan Experience with EVS
Systems integrator Alpha Video designed the system to meet HuskerVision’s desire for an unparalleled fan experience. “Between the capabilities of the XT3 and C-Cast, we can create and deliver content with context and give fans more ways to enjoy games,” said Jeff Volk, vice president, Alpha Video Sports. “With this workflow, fans will receive targeted informational content along with exclusive on-demand replays and game highlights on their own connected devices.” Connecting on-site TV production infrastructure to a flexible, central cloud-based platform, C-Cast enables content owners like HuskerVision to aggregate content, enrich it, or instantly deliver it to any platform.
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SHOWS
Robe Pointes ‘On Fire’ With the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones have just finished the European section of their “14 On Fire” tour with another spectacular lighting design by Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Basset Design (WBD) … Which included 54 x Robe ROBIN Pointes amongst 200 plus other moving lights. The 54 Pointes - the first to be incorporated into a design for the iconic band and the first time that Woodroffe has used Pointes on a major concert touring show - were provided by award winning UK lighting rental company, Neg Earth.
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Third Eye Blind Rocks with Clay Paky on Festival Tour
American alternative rock band Third Eye Blind (3eb) is taking its Festival Tour to venues across America, and Clay Paky’s A.leda B-EYE K20 LED-based moving lights are hitting the road with them. 3eb’s production and lighting designer Mitchell Schellenger, of I Like Lights in Denver, created a look for the band that echoes the sunset set times of some of their gigs. “The band doesn’t always have a headline slot, and when that happens they don’t have the luxury of performing in complete darkness,” Schellenger explains. “So we decided to mimic the look of sunset with warm pretty light on stage. To do that we needed really bright fixtures.”
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impression X4 Boosts German National Team’s Triumphant Celebration in Berlin
After winning a thrilling Cup Final in Rio de Janeiro and the subsequent flight home in the ‘Siegerflieger’ (the victors’ plane) nearly one million fans of the German national team gave them a memorable reception at the ‘Fan Mile’ in Berlin. Already in recent weeks up to 500,000 football fans had celebrated their team’s success on the Straße des 17 Juni in front of the Brandenburg Gate and along the Fan Mile. For the light show on the main stage, situated in front of the famous landmark, local company TLT Event AG was responsible for building the 65 square metre LED wall along with a number of GLP impression X4s.
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PRODUCTS
Over 200 units, 80 Broadcasters, 2,662 Hours of Live Transmission
More than 80 broadcasters from around the world have used LiveU technology during the 20th FIFA World Cup in Brazil, bringing the event to life and providing 360 degree coverage that would otherwise be impossible. Broadcasters are choosing to transmit the vast majority of their LiveU footage live: a remarkable 98 per cent of the 10,156 transmission sessions were made using live transmission mode. This represents a major increase from the last game-changing event for cellular bonding: the London 2012 Olympics. With over 200 LiveU units deployed, 2,664 hours of live transmission, and over 40.2TB of data delivered, the tournament is proving highly successful for those using LiveU.
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Further Modernization of NEPs Mobile Production Truck Fleet with VSM
In 2014 the USA-based facilities company NEP began modernizing its fleet of mobile production trucks. After installing VSM in NEPs SS22 truck last year NEP has decided to implement ten more VSM systems within the year 2014. Part of this investment in new technology will be the use of VSM for all of the ten HD mobile production trucks. The aim of using VSM as the control tool is to provide a flexible solution to fulfil NEPs customer’s needs. VSM allows for innovative and simplified operational workflows to both engineering and production staff.
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Pixel Power Takes Graphics on the Road for SABC
Pixel Power has delivered a further four Clarity graphics systems to South African national broadcaster SABC. The graphics workstations will be used in the broadcaster’s fleet of outside broadcast trucks, matching the capabilities to the studios in Johannesburg which already have eight Clarity systems. Standardising on Pixel Power Clarity across the full range of SABC’s creative capabilities makes it easy for designers to create common looks and develop imaginative graphics without concerns about technical limitations. The common platform also allows staff to move freely between studios and remote operations, making operations more flexible and increasing opportunities for operators and artists to work on a wider range of programmes.
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3D/4K ARISING
Commonwealth Games Ultra-HD Showcase for BBC R&D
BBC Research and Development has announced a range of new trials and public demonstrations as part of its Commonwealth Games showcase. These experiments bring together a wide range of industry partners and are helping to shape BBC R&D’s vision for the future of TV, and include a number of broadcasting milestones. The Showcase centres on BBC R&D’s recently announced plans to broadcast certain elements of the Commonwealth Games in Ultra-HD and an initial version of a new internet-based broadcasting system – two broadcasting firsts.
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NanoTech adds 45 New Concerts, Music and Sports Videos
NanoTech Entertainment, a pioneer in bringing the 4K Ultra HD experience to consumers, announced that it has entered into a distribution agreement to add 45 concerts, music and sports videos as well as horror films that will be added to NanoTech's UltraFlix all 4K Ultra HD IPTV/OTT network. 4K Studios, a NanoTech subsidiary, will be creating pristine 4K digital masters from the films. With the addition of a total of 11 concerts, 13 music & performing arts films and 19 sports videos as well as 2 horror films, UltraFlix subscribers will be able to choose from nearly 350 hours of sci-fi, action/thriller, comedy, drama and family movies as well as knock-your-socks-off extreme sports videos, concerts, TV shows, special events and Moving Murals in addition to 100 hours of free content.
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4K Boom Drives Pablo Rio Sales in Japan
With 4K rapidly gaining hold as the medium of choice in Japan for movies, high quality TV programs and large screen public displays, post houses have turned to Quantel and Pablo Rio to handle 4K post production. The move to 4K is being boosted by the Japanese government which is targeting widespread delivery of 4K to homes throughout Japan by 2016 in time for the Olympic Games in Brazil. Japanese post houses need to be able to offer fast and creative 4K to their customers. As a result of the 4K boom many of Japan’s leading post houses have purchased Quantel Pablo Rio 4K color and finishing software and in some cases Genetic Engineering 2 shared workspace systems.
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ETIA 2014 Overview: Holodeck
On June 17 and 18, attendees gathered in the Nvidia Auditorium in the Huang Engineering Building on the Stanford campus to hear presentations from more than 50 industry experts. These visionaries shared their insights on best practices and future challenges for serving the entertainment needs of consumers worldwide over IP-based infrastructure — most commonly using the Internet. Unique to this year's ETIA conference was a demonstration of cutting-edge products and prototypes for virtual reality (VR), which was designed to showcase the variety of technologies needed to create the ultimate immersive entertainment experience. The event was dubbed "The Entertainment Holodeck" after the famous "Star Trek" virtual reality environment. Organizer David Singhal of LightField Interactive was able to attract a range of companies large and small, including many that were exhibiting their cutting-edge technologies publicly for the first time.
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