Newsletter from 04/12/2012
HD OBVans and HD Studios
MOBILE PRODUCTION
NEP Cymru
NEP Cymru (NEPC) is the largest OB and studio television facilities company based in Wales - serving the industry throughout the UK and Europe from Cardiff. NEP Cymru is proud of its industry-respected team, the quality and diversity of the work and the innovative and extensive kit Cymru has to offer. The credits range from high end arts performances, rock concerts and festivals to international sport and major live events. NEPC can provide all levels of OB facilities including flypack solutions, kit and crew and unrivalled project management by some of the industry's leading technical managers. The studio complex is the largest in the region and can be dry-hired or offered with full facilities. Wherever and whatever a customer needs, NEPC’s team will offer a bespoke service and dedicated support from idea to delivery with minimal fuss and maximum results. NEPC believes drama belongs on the screen, not behind the scenes.
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Cloudbass
Cloudbass provides a range of solutions to the broadcast market, from crew to graphics to full HD Outside Broadcast facilities and anything in between. Cloudbass is dedicated to working at the highest level, to the very best of company's abilities, in all situations. With clients such as the BBC, Mentorn, Manchester United, ITV Sport, ESPN, Sky, CTV and Sis Live! and suppliers like Riedel, Apple and EVS, Cloudbass provides and demands the very best. By bringing together its emphatic belief in the value of its people, the knowledge and experience of its top personnel with the enthusiasm for doing things a little bit different, Cloudbass is able to offer its clients the best solutions in whatever area of broadcast and production it is required to deliver. Cloudbass recently acquired the HD OB7 truck from Arqiva which now is named CBOB7.
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Brazil’s Sistema Clube Selects EVS XT3 Servers for New HD Truck
Sistema Clube has equipped the new truck with four eight-channel SD/HD EVS XT3 servers for complete media control from ingest to playout, including live editing, slow-motion replays, multi-channel playback and transfer to third-party systems. Feeds and clips from the XT3 servers will be stored on five EVS XFly SATA-based portable storage cases. Each case provides up to 6.2TB of storage with capacity for 140 hours of HD at 100Mbps. After the live shoot, Sistema Clube’s operators can transport the entire production, including program feed, multiple camera angles and highlights in a single XFly case which can then be plugged into the editing suite to enable editors to immediately begin their creative tasks.
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United Assures Communications with RTS
The nerve centre of communications inside OB 14 and OB 15 comprises digital matrices from RTS. OB 14 is equipped with an Advanced Digital Audio Matrix (ADAM) with a 144 x 144 port configuration. In OB 15, a slightly smaller Cronus digital matrix with a 64 x 64 configuration has been installed. Supporting up to 464 ports, ADAM is RTS’s top-of-the-line matrix. With the redundant power supplies and redundant controllers, integrated MCII-e controllers allow the simultaneous use of up to 32 parallel AZEdit clients via Ethernet or RS-485. The RTS Cronus intercom, on the other hand, is a modular 32-port digital matrix intercom only two rack units in height that can be equipped with up to four AIO analogue or RVON-C VoIP cards with eight ports each. Relying on DSP architecture, each Cronus matrix is capable of uniting with up to three others to form an integrated system with 128 ports. In addition to the matrices, over 40 KP-12 and KP-32 keypanels from RTS form part of the equipment of the two trucks with twelve RTS 2W/4W interfaces and twenty-five belt packs rounding off the vehicles’ inventory.
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Etabeta Selects Clear-Com for its FlexiVan OB Project
The Eclipse matrix system and V-Series intercom panels will be used to coordinate complex broadcast productions, including sports, talk shows and conventions. The installation was specified and facilitated by Video Progetti, Clear-Com’s broadcast distributor in Italy. As a leading production company for more than 25 years, Etabeta has created some of the most technically advanced television programs for such top networks as RAI and Mediaset. As part of its commitment to providing quality productions to the global market, Etabeta develops programs of almost every style. Its latest OB vehicle, FlexiVan, serves as a broadcast production hub and connects multiple broadcasters’ OB vans. FlexiVan also comes with a full ENG crew to accommodate events of any size at any location in the world.
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STUDIO PRODUCTION
Euro Media France Studios - Plateaux A
Euro Media France is part of the Euro Media Group (EMG). EMG was created by the merger in 2007 of UBF Media Group, a Dutch company founded in 1982, and Euro Media Télévision, a French company founded in 1983. With a presence in seven countries (France, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Italy), Euro Media Group is now a leader in the European audiovisual technical services market in terms of turnover and production capacity (mobile units and studios). The studios, of which there are 90 (accounting for over 64,000 m2 of studio space) used for both live and recorded programmes that will only be broadcasted once, as well repeat programmes (feature films, TV drama, serials etc.).
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Istil Studios - Filming Pavillion
Filming pavilions of ISTIL Studios production company are a part of the studio complex, located in the territory of the A. Dovzhenko film studio and cover the area of over 2,000 sq. m. The pavilions are equipped with first-rate lighting, audio and video equipment. The entrance for heavy truck transport and operating ceiling height up to 20 meters allow placing the most large-scale decorations and arranging shooting cameras on different levels. ISTIL Studios filming pavilions rank among the largest ones in Europe, meet the most up-to-date technical requirements and allow shooting projects of absolutely all genres, formats and degrees of complexity.
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Magic Media Company Studio 36
With the studio lot Coloneum, which covers 39.5 acres, Magic Media Company (MMC) is one of Europe’s largest and most advanced TV and film studio operators. MMC operates 19 sound stages and TV studios with a total floor area of 221,000 sq ft. These stages and studios offer space for every type of movie, TV or event production. Sizes range from 1,900 to 27,600 sq ft, including the two tallest stages in Europe with a height of 85 ft each (one of them also has a water tank), as well as a green screen (3-Wall-Cyc) with a floor space of 2,325 sq ft and an operating area of 1,350 sq ft. All TV studios and sound stages are equipped with built-in production offices, dressing rooms, makeup & hair facilities, wardrobe areas and green rooms, as well as spaces dedicated to costume storage.
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HD Studio Directory 2012
In our HD Studio Special 2012 gives detailed presentations of 41 HD Studios from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Similar to our successful HD OBVan Directories we present each HD Studio on three pages including a technical synopsis with an overview on the installed hardware in the sections lighting, public address, cameras, lenses and pedestals, video gallery, audio gallery, intercom and the listing of the relevant system integrators. In addition to these straight forward presentations we have a dedicated focus on studio lighting, videowalls in studios and fast turnaround productions. Finally we focus on the production of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku.
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SPORTS
France’s Swimmers Dominated Europeans at Home
The host broadcaster for this event was France Television. France Television has engaged XD Motion to provide the Special Cameras for this event:
* Top shot with Pan & Tilt head > All in one fiber SMPTE only: HD/SDI, Painting, Data head & lens, Power
* Polecam with underwater housing Pan and Tilt head. First time we used the new Fish Face remote head underwater
* Spirit, underwater track motion control with Pan & Tilt Head (New from Deep Vision)
* X track side pool with cable chain and Cine G Gyro stabilized head
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Vendée Globe: Setting Sail on the Everest of the Seas
To capture a boat race in photograph is always a challenge. To ensure visibility of the biggest round-the-world race is an even harder one to attempt. The key challenges are to give meaning and to ensure as many people as possible see the action as it unfolds. To achieve these goals, the producer can choose from 13 RF sources and 3 wired cameras, to offer a wide variety of viewing angles and make it easier for viewers to understand what’s going on. From the piers, the Vendée Globe Village, at the exit of the channel or on the open seas, not one of the strategic positions was overlooked at the race start thanks to a technical system adapted and optimised by the expertise of the RF department. 3 helicopters - one of them equipped with a Cineflex stabilising optical block - and a relay plane at an altitude of 3,500m secured the transmission link between the RF sources and the RF van, positioned close to OB truck 11 at the port authority offices of Sables d'Olonne.
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NEP Visions Provides Technical Facilities for UCI Track Cycling World Cup
Being a brand new venue, very few cable routes existed in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, so new provision was made in the planning stages. Visions set up two trucks - HD4 and Mercury - for the host feed. The cycling action was captured with LDK line cameras, LDK super slo mo's, and radio cameras including one on the derny motorbike (the pace-maker) and one on a Segway catching the action around the track. These cameras all fed to HD4, which cut the host broadcast for the UCI world feed. In addition Visions provided another truck, NEP 1, for BBC Sport’s red button coverage on Friday and Saturday and live transmission on BBC2 on Sunday. An EVS network was set up across all the trucks so that everyone had access to the same material for editing.
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SHOWS
Robe a Winner at La Grande Battle 2012
The ‘La Grande Battle’ concept brings a slightly different take to TV music talent competitions .... An orchestra performs classical pieces which are reinterpreted by a series of contemporary performers - in their own style. Broadcast annually on France 2 it's fast become a cult 'must watch' event for popular music lovers and this year attracted over 2 million viewers! The 2012 Grande battle was won by Zac Zazou from Amiens, who reinterpreted a piece from Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ on an amazing array of improvised instruments made from metal saws, drainage pipes and extraneous other elements of industrial trash!
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Arsch Huh Zäng Ussenander
The recent Arsch Huh music festival in Cologne, Germany was one of the largest of the year, with 85,000 people enjoying performances by more than 25 bands including BAP, Bläck Fööss, Brings, Tommy Engel and other notable German artists. The concert, organized in 1992 to stand against racism, celebrated its 20th anniversary with spectacular sound courtesy of Sirius Showequipment AG and an audio system featuring HARMAN’s JBL VTX Series line arrays. The speakers were driven by 30 Crown I-Tech 12000 HD amplifiers, and Neumann and his crew used HARMAN’s JBL HiQnet Performance Manager™ software to set up and tune the system.
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TV3 Takes a Step Forward in the Use of Technology in the "Special Elections"
The Game of Thrones music was played and a camera flew over the trees of the Citadel, entering the Parliament of Catalonia to accompany viewers on the way to the Sala dels Passos Perduts (Hall of Lost Steps), where the presenters of the "Special election" on TV3 waited. It was the beginning of an election that made history. Therefore, TV3 got out of their studios for the first time to follow the voting at this hemicycle that was occupied by the new Parliament members during these days. The entrance to the TV3 set of the "2012 Special Parliamentary Elections" marked the tone of a night that, in addition to comprehensive information, also offered the latest in the field of technology, a joint effort of professionals from different fields that Catalan viewers have awarded with absolute leadership of the night and a cumulative audience of nearly four million people.
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PRODUCTS
Audio-Technica: History of Live Sound
During the ’70s, the role of the musician in American culture had been elevated by the rapid growth in record sales, the increase in the concert business and the dramatic surge of album-oriented-rock (AOR) radio stations. All were buttressed by the increasingly popular music and fan magazines such as Rolling Stone and the growing number of underground, or alternative weekly newspapers that sprang up around the country. In short, musicianswere the new gods. But they were nothing without their human-engineered microphones to amplify their music, lyrics, antics, attitudes and instruments. The Live Sound market looked like an ideal place for Audio-Technica to be. However, competitors already in the Live Sound space dominated the action. A-T took its first assured steps in 1978 to find its audience with the 800 Series mic line, a mixture of dynamic and condenser stand mics, with both omnidirectional and cardioid pickup patterns, plus two lavalier (clip-on) mics.
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Horus Got Talent
A spectacular 19th Century castle might not seem the obvious choice for two editions of the Czech & Slovakia Got Talent show, but every nation that has taken this FeemantleMedia formula, puts its own identity on the venues as well as the performers. Castle Lednice was the summer palace of the Liechtenstein Royal Family until they fled in 1943 taking everything they could move with them. Now restored to its former glory, the castle and its surroundings have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Situated near Brno, this was the location for three days of shooting in August for two “Big Bang” editions of the show broadcast in November. Jam Film 1999 look after all the production and it was transmitted by TV Prima in the Czech Republic and TV JOJ in Slovakia.
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Report on the Conference with Patrick Woodroffe
Patrick Woodroffe retraced the greatest moments of his career in the splendid setting of the Auditorium Antonianum, made even more impressive by the lights installed by Clay Paky. He particularly focused on the preparation he did for the recent London Olympics and Michael Jackson's last tour, which did not take place owing to the singer's death. Using his personal diary, Woodroffe gave details of the various stages of the "This is it!" project, which was meant to bring Michael Jackson back to the limelight after twelve years of absence. The aim was to make him an everlasting success with an event that Woodroffe himself described as "the greatest show in history".
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3D/4K Arising
DeepSee-X
CHROMA Media Hamburg´s "DeepSee-X" underwater camera housing makes it possible, for the first time ever, to submerge a complete Stereo 3D camera system composed of various modules - to depths of 80 meters! The system is completely independent of the land; all of the equipment fits in one compact aluminium housing. "DeepSee-X" can also be operated with an underwater scooter. This paves the way for beautifully long and smooth underwater tracking shots. The system, developed in cooperation with UK-Germany, consists of a P+S Technics mirror rig, as well as two SinaCAM cameras. The built-in camera equipment is interchangeable with various current models (up to a 2K resolution). A recorder, a monitor and batteries perfectly round out the system.
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