Newsletter from 22/04/2014
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MOBILE PRODUCTION
CSP Mobile Productions HD4
CSP currently provides state-of-the-art HD production units to CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS College Sports, NBC Sports and ESPN. CSP’s most recent HD unit was put in service in November 2012 with another newly constructed HD unit scheduled to roll out in November 2013. CSP maintains a five bay, 10,000 square foot maintenance facility situated on four acres of land in Saco, Maine. The site has ample room and the approvals in place to expand the facility to accommodate the company’s future growth plans. With 5 top-of-the-line mobile production vehicles ready to roll, CSP can be on location for any level of need. Our reach is ever expanding and currently covers a majority of North America.
Get the Specs of HD4 here
Lyon Video Unit 14 HD
Lyon Video entered the mobile production industry in 1996. We maintain a fleet of eleven production trucks, with four B-unit trucks as well. We have a wide variety of trucks available, both in size and capabilities. We are committed to providing high-quality facilities for our clients' production needs. Lyon Video operates 12 production trucks. The latest addion to their fleet is Unit 14 HD. It was unveiled at NAB as "Truck of the Future". It is a network enhanced production vehicle powered by an Evertz SDVN solution. SDVN (Software Defined Video Network) is Evertz’ new architecture developed around a 10Gbps Ethernet core offering a flexible infrastructure that is format agnostic and can easily support 4K and 8K video.
Get the Specs of Unit 14 here
Token Creek Chippewa
Since 1992, Token Creek Mobile Television, Inc. has served the mobile broadcast production needs for network, regional and local sports broadcasters, as well as the entertainment industry, educators and Fortune 500 corporations. With state-of-the-art mobile production units and a prime Midwest location near Madison, Wisconsin, Token Creek Mobile Television Inc. has provided mobile production units to sports clients like ESPN Regional Television, CBS Sports Network, NFL Network, Alliance Productions and NBA Entertainment, corporate clients such as EPIC Systems, Harley-Davidson and Georgia-Pacific, and local stations like WLEX in Lexington, KY, WCIU in Chicago and KSTP/KSTC in Minneapolis. With an unparalleled record of high quality production services, a team with years of broadcast production experience and a fleet of mobile units with premier technology, Token Creek Mobile Television, Inc. provides production solutions to clients, regardless of the production’s price range. Token Creek is part of Alliance Productions.
Get the Specs of Chippewa here
Kitting out a Future-Proof OB Van
Italian broadcast company Di Bi Technology is the outside broadcast provider for many top-tier Italian football matches as well as high-profile entertainment programmes, including the 2013 Italian version of ‘The X Factor’. To enable it to provide the highest quality OB services to its disparate client base, it has recently taken delivery of a huge OB truck with four expandable sides that can cope with 28 camera feeds. The vehicle – called DiBi 11 – was designed and built by Sony and has Sony products at the core of its complex operations. The kit list for Di Bi Technology’s truck reveals the design and implementation of the van has been put together to provide a truly ‘best of breed’ outside broadcast service. Aside from being wired for almost 30 cameras, it’s built around the high-end, 3G ready Sony MVS-8000X switcher and OLED Trimaster EL professional monitors.
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STUDIO PRODUCTION
Robe Pointes Shine At MIA Awards
The 2013 Music Industry Awards (MIAs) show was staged in Brussels by Flemish national TV channel VRT (Vlaamse Radio en Televisieomroeporganisatie ) in February to honour the best of the lively Belgian music scene. Lighting was designed by Luc Peumans from Painting With Light. The rig included 60 x Robe ROBIN Pointe and 36 x ROBIN LEDWash 800 moving lights which were a vital element of Peumans’ vibrant design for the all-action show that included nine live performances and saw the presentation of the Awards. The studio space was designed with a circular Green Room Area where all the artists and nominees sat for the show. There were three stages as well as a very enthusiastic live audience of 800 music fans and multiple cameras in the space.
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An Array of Clay Paky Lighting Fixtures Helps “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” Shine
The iconic “Tonight Show” now originates from NBC’s upgraded Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Center where lighting designer Fred Bock, of Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA) has used 17 Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20 innovative, LED-based moving lights, 16 new Clay Paky Alpha Profile 800STs and 17 Clay Paky Sharpy Washes for band lighting. The lighting package, which features some of the newest technology in the industry, is supplied by WorldStage. Although Bock’s overall goal for the show was to keep the lights as unobtrusive as possible to both the design of the studio space and the camera, he took a different approach for the band lighting. “The Clay Paky B-EYEs are meant to be seen and provide a look for music that is fresh and new,” he says. “The flexibility of the B-EYE makes it a perfect light for effects in the haze, but they can also be used as wash lights in the music set as well.”
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Input Media Upgrades with Custom Consoles Module R Furniture
Input Media is one of the UK’s leading sports TV production and facility companies. It is based in west London with a state-of-the-art HD Broadcast and Production Centre consisting of Avid edit suites, a multi-camera presentation studio, file-based EVS technology and full fibre and satellite connectivity. Input Media has been established for more than 25 years, have more than 100 staff, and produce over 2,000 hours of top-quality programming every year. Input Media is the complete one-stop-shop. The range of output and services includes live event coverage and host broadcasting; fast turn-around highlights programming; full post-production and editing facilities; streaming and delivery for other digital services; playout and satellite downlinking; full graphic design and branding services.
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SPORTS
Swatch FreeRide World Tour by The North Face Integrates NewTek 3Play
Freeride is not what we can call a large public sport, freeriders and snowboarders defy gravity in an extreme and hostile environment. All the competitions depend on the weather conditions, and the sport itself is somehow dangerous, anything can happen. For the past years, a small production was set to feed the big screens on site and to record images. These images were used for making-of and best-of, to be posted on line, or to send highlights to televisions who wanted to cover the event. Basically it was "fast-production", simple content for the Radio Television Suisse, the Swiss Frenchspeaking public broadcasting company. Steeve Morales, Technical Manager on Swatch Freeride World Tour by The North Face, and his team decided to start with a small production system. They would receive the feeds from the television captures and mix them to display a different content. They decided to share this content and post it online, on Dailymotion. They received the encouraging number of 70 000 connections which led them to pursue on that way and stream the event live.
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Winter X Games Chooses Soundcraft Vi1 As Part Of A New Integrated Fiber Optics Network
Ed Johnson Audio, designer and contractor of audio systems, is a private company specializing in large events such as the NAB Conventions, Red Bull Events, and the Summer and Winter X Games. Having provided reliable technical expertise for these events for 14 years, owner Ed Johnson always relies on the most suitable gear for each event, opting this year for HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi1 digital console to mix the sound at the 2014 Winter X Games. Held in Aspen, Colorado, the Winter X Games presented a different challenge for the audio engineers, as they were required to mix the live aspect of the show and share feeds with television broadcast on ESPN. To achieve this, for the first time as one big system at the Winter X Games, fiber optics were used to create an integrated connection between the TV network and the control tower, essentially allowing them to share all feeds and signals.
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Broadcast Solutions Clears the Boundary for Cricket Indian Premier League
The story began with a contract secured in 2013 to provide production facilities for the 2013, 2014 and 2015 editions of the IPL to serve clients including STAR Sports, Ten Sports and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). For the first tournament, the company fielded nine OB kits and purchased three Lawo mc²56 digital broadcast consoles with HD Core technology for this purpose. A further six Lawo systems used at this event were hired for the job. This year, Broadcast Solutions provided all broadcast facilities – including cameras, EVS, comms systems, audio systems, video engineering equipment, vision mixers and the engineering crew – for the three venues in the UAE and the eight venues in India used in the tournament. In addition, the company has purchased six further Lawo mc²56 16-16C-0 consoles with HD Cores and DALLIS system I/O.
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SHOWS
Robe ‘Rides the Rig’ at Houston Rodeo
Sixty Robe ROBIN Pointes and five Robe ROBIN DLS Profile fixtures ‘rode the rig’ at the 2014 Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas throughout the month of March. Performers included Brad Paisley, Eli Young Band, Reba McEntire, Usher, Chris Young, Selena Gomez, REO Speedwagon, Jason Aldean, Jake Owen, Maroon 5, Keith Urban, Hunter Hayes, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Easton Corbin, The Band Perry and Zac Brown Band. For 20 consecutive nights, the LD Systems lighting team of lighting designer/programmer John Dickson, programmer Nathan Brittain and crew chief Jim Brace worked with a number of guest lighting designers to cap off each night of rodeo activities with musical performances.
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Elisa Soars Somewhere Between Dreams and Reality with Clay Paky
Elisa is one of the few artists who love to supervise the whole design and creative process involved in artistic/musical projects. She came up with the original tour concept and then handed it over to a well-established creative team, consisting of lighting and show designer Mamo Pozzoli, set designer Igor Ronchese, and artistic director Mauro Simionato, with Edit Art in charge of the visual art. The stage looks deceptively simple and uncluttered. It is a big double sided "E", which symbolizes the artist's name. This "E" is repeated on the backlit backdrop and in the shape of the stage, which protrudes for a few dozen metres into the centre of the various sites that host the tour.
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Philips Showline SL NITRO 510s Are a Hit on Goldfrapp's Latest European Tour
'Striking, stylish and slightly strange' are the words that established lighting designer Rob Sinclair uses to describe his eerie lighting design for musical duo Goldfrapp's latest tour. Similar words could also describe the effects that he gets from the Philips Showline SL NITRO 510 strobe luminaires, which Sinclair has specified to deliver cinematic, crisp, cross stage washes alongside stark, ice white strobe effects. Inspired by the 'film noir' artistry of Goldfrapp's latest album 'Tales of Us', Sinclair's high contrast lighting design uses 10 x Philips Showline SL NITRO 510's to create unadulterated up-lit washes and acid-flash strobe effects that accompany some of the band's most haunting tracks.
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Time Flies in Reverze with Wicreations!
Belgian based automation and engineering specialists Wicreations supplied specialist flying and movement system for the recent Reverze event staged simultaneously at Antwerp’s famous Sportpalais venue and the adjacent Lotto Arena, accommodating upwards of 20,000 hard dance music fans. The event, produced by Bass Events is the largest indoor hardstyle event, and this year’s theme was ‘Guardians of Time’. The centrepiece of the set - designed by Peter Vervloesem for Amaze Productions - was a 4.5 by 4.5 by 5 metre high scenic clock. This was required to move approximately 50 metres from backstage to the rear of the Sportpalais arena.
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PRODUCTS
Fourth Vision Mixers Show on 29th April 2014 at SKY TV West London
The show brings together ALL the main Vision Mixing Manufacturers (Sony, Snell, Ross,For-A, Grass Valley) each showing their latest High Definition Broadcast (some also with 4K) Vision Mixing Desks in the one room. The event will be FREE* (*a returnable £5 registration fee) to attend for Vision Mixers, Engineers, Facility Managers and other Broadcast Professionals. The show is set to run for one day only.
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Broadcast Pix Expands Flint Integrated Production Switcher Family
At NAB 2014 Broadcast Pix™ unveiled its expanded family of Flint™ end-to-end integrated production switchers. All three HD models include the same Fluent™ workflow software tools, but provide different input configurations to address different production requirements and budgets. There are three new Flint models available. The entry-level system, Flint LE, supports three HDMI or analog (composite, component or S-Video) inputs and is now priced at $7,495. Flint LX features four SDI or HDMI inputs for $9,995. Flint LS supports six inputs and offers a choice of six SDI (two of which can be HDMI) or four SDI and two HDMI or analog inputs for $12,995. In addition, all three models include two additional network inputs, which are ideal for presentations and Web pages from remote computers. All three models are available now.
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RUS-TAB: The World's First Live Production Server with Integrated Telestrator
One of the most important breakthroughs made by BLT is a new system called RUS-TAB, which allows TV directors or journalists to achieve live control of all BLT servers. The main functions and controls provided are jog-shuttle, real-time zoom, and the insertion and management of graphical elements. BLT describes this latest development as “a new use of tablets within live sports broadcasts”. The complete control of the video server which handles all clips’ live airing or the selected video content is now manageable from a simple tablet interfaced via Wi-Fi or cable Ethernet. BLT also declares its new system as “the world’s first with integrated TeleStrator functions”.
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3D/4K ARISING
National Theatre Live to Broadcast "War Horse" in 4K
London's National Theatre have been at the forefront of the live transmission of theatrical performances into digital cinemas worldwide. In fact since 2009 they have broadcast more than 20 productions to over 500 digitally equipped Cinemas around the world, where they have been watched by over 1.5 million people. As well as the live broadcasts recordings are made so that they can also be repeated later to fit in with local time zones and demand. Up until now the broadcasts have been in HD, but on the 27th of February they were shooting and transmitting their stage production of Michael Morpugo's play "War Horse" in 4K. Creative Broadcast Solutions and NEP Visions have been working with National Theatre Live for some time. Now they were working together with Sony to create the infrastructure to enable live 4K transmission.
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Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic URSA
At NAB 2014 Blackmagic Design announced Blackmagic URSA, a new high end digital film camera designed to revolutionize workflow on set. Built to handle the ergonomics of large film crews as well as single person use, URSA has multiple accessories built in, including a massive 10 inch fold out on set monitor, large user upgradable Super 35 global shutter 4K image sensor and internal dual RAW and Apple ProRes recorders. Because the sensor and lens mount assembly can be changed, customers can choose EF or PL lens mounts, or even a broadcast video sensor with B4 mount, then upgrade the camera in the future. The Blackmagic URSA EF model will retail for $5,995.
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FUJIFILM’s 4K Fujinon Lenses Provide Crystal Clear Images to Major Sports Productions
The “El Classico - FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid “ is one of the hottest matches on the planet which had been viewed by close to half a billion (~500mio) viewers from around the globe. And for those who did not see that match the FC Barcelona won the match by 4:3 goals. What most viewers did not know is that the game was partially produced with 4K technology several Sony F-55 and Fujinon ZK-Series (Cabrio) 4K Cine Zoom Lenses. The Spanish Football league LFP is striving to become the first football league in the world to produce matches in 4K on a regular basis. The production of the match was handled by the Spanish based company “MediaPro” which has offices in Barcelona and Madrid. MediaPro will also be amongst the numerous production companies to produce the 2014 World Cup in Brasil, it is worth mentioning that the final will also be produced in 4K.
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