A new reality format is breaking all the records in the Netherlands: “Utopia” is a hit with both TV and Internet audiences. Devised by John de Mol and produced by Talpa, “Utopia” has invited 15 inhabitants to leave their usual lives behind for a full year to create an ideal mini-society of their own in Blaricum, near Hilversum. Multimedia company Dutchview was faced with the big challenge of covering a 12,500 square metre area with both video and audio recording equipment to follow the Utopia inhabitants. In order to provide coverage to this vast area with an RF wireless solution, they turned to Sennheiser Benelux for assistance.

Live production isn’t static – it never has been. Workflows and the processes they enable are constantly evolving. With the introduction of UHD-4K, the adoption of IP for the deployment of infrastructures and the roll out of workflows that support new, more immersive consumer-facing formats, outside broadcast facilities are facing more challenges than ever before.

Reference monitors have a straightforward, yet complex mission: to ensure that “what you see is really what you get”. To function as a real reference, they have to deliver images with an accurate, reliable color balance. In the early 1970s, VRT, the public broadcaster for the Flemishspeaking part of Belgium (6 million people), used Barco reference monitors to guarantee the seamless transition from black and white to color TV production.

Sky Deutschland has added the popular Sky Sports News 24 channel to its extensive line-up. More than three million subscribers across the Sky Deutschland region in Germany, Austria and Switzerland can now tune in to the dedicated sports channel for 19 hours a day.

Challenge

Construct a flexible and versatile production center and control room at space-constrained corporate headquarters with a new state-of-the-art technology foundation that will seamlessly evolve to meet future video consumption and business requirements

Products

▪ Selenio™ MCP media processors with Uncompressed-over-IP (UCIP) modules

▪ Nexio+® AMP™ media servers

▪ EPIC™ MV multiviewer

▪ Magellan™ SDN Orchestrator control system

Customer profile: Studios A/S is a leading full service facility provider in Denmark. Its home to TV shows such as Strictly come dancing, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Allstars, Luxury Trap, MasterChef and many more.

TVN is ThoroughVisioN Pty Ltd, a premium sports and interactive rights management company that specialises in horse racing. To date it manages the thoroughbred horse racing rights for all racing in Victoria and metropolitan Sydney, and seeks to manage other racing rights throughout Australia and globally.

The company’s history started back in 1976, with the TV Broadcast institute in Šiauliai (Lithuania), where all the broadcast equipment for CIS countries and OB vans were manufactured for the Moscow Olympic games in the summer of 1980. In 1996, following the Soviet Union collapse, a team of engineers established TVC. Over the years, the company has constantly grown and now works on projects around the globe.

Systems integrator and coachbuilder TVC and outside broadcast production company Croatel continue their long lasting and successful relationship. Last year both companies embarked to build the UHD 4K OB van. This was the first 4K endeavour for both companies with numerous challenges and tough technical decisions along the way. Croatel OB5 UHD 4K has been in operations for a year already and lessons learned can now be shared with the broadcast audience.

Dogan TV Holding is one of the largest broadcasting companies in Turkey and owns three leading Turkish TV channels (Kanal D, Star TV and CNNTurk). Dogan TV also runs a digital platform with 67 channels, including four HD channels, and handles the live broadcasting of almost all international sporting events to the Turkish market. At its headquarters in Istanbul, Dogan TV has two HD studios and seven SD studios — including HD and SD control rooms — and operates its own in-house productions (series, talk shows, contests, etc.) for transmission to its HD channels. Dogan TV also runs a Satellite News Gathering (SNG) fleet of 14 units and an Outside Broadcast (OB) fleet of four units.

Until recently, WebStream Sports was an independent provider of remote broadcast, in-venue and studio production. Starting out in 2006, the Indianapolis-based business had focused primarily on live sports, spent nearly a decade in high demand for its reputation for high-quality sports productions, and achieved remarkable success in a relatively short time.

A new installation of TSL’s TallyMan controller provides a showcase for the system’s expanded control capabilities resulting from a collaboration between TSL and systems integrator WTS Broadcast. The system has been incorporated into the new HD broadcast truck operated by horseracing industry services specialist RaceTech.

What production and sport have in common are the people. The heart of sport are the fans, the heart of production is the audience. Today's sport live production goes beyond sport by itself, and focuses on what is most important for both industries: the audience.

Television center Ostankino has been the biggest broadcasting center in Europe for more than 45 years. Modern equipment from world’s leading producers and qualified specialists provide technological platform for creation and expansion of content by Russian’s leading tele- and radio companies. Television center Ostankino includes studios, over-the-air and assembly equipment rooms, complexes for making decorations and maintenance of production processes.

An investment in expensive HD and 3D equipment can be optimized by dint of a well-conceived, flexible system architecture, paired with a fiber optic camera switch solution.