ESC 2012 Review - UEFA EURO 2012 - Olympics 2012 Preview

Alfacam Will Cover the Final of UEFA EURO 2012

Alfacam, the Belgian company delivering services to TV stations and production houses, will be present during the UEFA EURO 2012. This year UEFA Productions choose the Belgian company to cover all the matches organized in the stadium of Kyiv and Lviv. Alfacam will be present during 8 matches : 6 group stages matches (3 in Kyiv and 3 in Lviv), a quarter final and the final of the competition in Kyiv. The final will be played on 1st of July and followed by a potential of 4 billion people world wide.

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ACS Celebrates Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

The BBC Events production team conceived the idea at an early stage of providing extensive coverage on board the Royal Barge using solely remote cameras in preference to manned and PSC style cameras. As a result, eight ACS SMARThead™ remote pan and tilt heads were installed equipped with Ikegami HDL51 ‘brick style’ 2/3 HD broadcast quality cameras. Six were fitted with Canon HJ14 lenses and the remaining two with Canon HJ22s. The cameras offered shots of Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Party on board as well as giving their POV of this unique flotilla.

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Calrec’s Summer of Sport

Summer 2012 is to be an exciting time for the UK OB industry. With a packed sporting schedule it is hands on deck over the coming months, with all the major players present throughout the summer. This in turn means that Calrec’s desks will be in abundance too. In fact, Calrec will have more than 30 consoles on air for UK outside broadcast events this summer, covering a variety of international sports including tennis, boxing, swimming and athletics. Henry Goodman, Head of Sales and Marketing, said, “Calrec is very proud of the number of consoles being used over the coming months’ sporting season and it is a credit to our company to be selected on such a great scale for the sporting pinnacle of the year. We feel it is down to our reputation for ground-breaking products, their reliability and our second-to-none support that has led us to this market-leading position.”

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Moscow's Technostyle Chooses Grass Valley for New Outside Broadcast Unit

With HD production taking hold in the region, especially with its customers recently upgrading to HD, Technostyle was challenged to not only meet current client needs, but to prepare itself for the future of OB production in the region. For maximum operational flexibility and image quality, Technostyle selected Grass Valley™ for all the key technologies within the unit, including cameras and production switchers. The unit will carry 12 Grass Valley LDK 8000 Elite HD cameras, fitted with the new Grass Valley 3G Transmission system to provide maximum effectiveness and range from existing triax cables, as well as the ability to use fiber when necessary. The cameras feed a Grass Valley Karrera™ 2 M/E Video Production Center, which delivers unsurpassed creative control in a compact and affordable package.

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REVIEW: The Eurovision Song Contest 2012

The Eurovision Song Contest can be a rollercoaster of emotions for the artists taking part. From the thrill of qualifying for the Final, to the dejection of failing to make the last 26. The Final of Europe's Favourite TV Show, on Saturday 26th May was won of course by Loreen from Sweden as she romped home to victory with Euphoria. It was a runaway victory for Sweden in the end. The runners up came from Russia, Buranovskiye Babushki and third place was won by Željko Joksimović of Serbia. Our review covers Sennheiser, Clay Paky, MA Lighting, Parasol, RTS, CT, MCI, Riedel, Lawo, Alfacam, Green Hippo and Soundcraft and explaine how they have worked together to bring the show to the screens.

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TV Globo Chooses Orad PlayMaker for Studio Production

TV Globo’s production staff will use PlayMaker’s dedicated studio work mode to create and broadcast better highlight packages faster and easier. PlayMaker’s studio mode lets users toggle between incoming feeds, simplifying the process for editing highlight content from multiple sources.  With PlayMaker, each feed has its own playlist, so that each marked in and out points are added directly to the relevant playlist, eliminating the time consuming process of first saving clips and later pushing them into a playlist.

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Albania's News 24 Streamlines Graphics Capabilities With Chyron Channel Box² and LEX³.¹

"We have achieved fantastic results with Channel Box² and LEX³.¹. With a single computer, we can now perform the job that three separate systems and three different software licenses were doing before — and with absolute top-quality results," said Arianit Filopati, director of production, News 24. "The Chyron systems have accelerated uploading and delivery of news to air, and since our journalists are spending much less time on graphics presentations, they can focus on their real work of gathering and delivering the news. With Chyron, our news broadcasts now have the most professional look of any in Albania."

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NBC Lays Out 2012 London Olympics Broadcast Plan

NBCUniversal will provide 5,535 hours of coverage for the 2012 London Olympics across NBC, NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, NBCOlympics.com, two specialty channels, and the first-ever 3D platform, an unprecedented level that surpasses the coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics by nearly 2,000 hours. It was also announced today that NBC will broadcast 272.5 hours of coverage, the most ever for an Olympic broadcast network, largely attributable to an increase in daytime coverage. NBCOlympics.com will live stream every single event (also on YouTube) for the first time ever including streams of each of its channels, encompassing 3,500 total hours and the awarding of all 302 medals. Also new for the internet are multiple streams for the same event, so for example, viewers can select a particular gymnastics apparatus or track and field event at will.

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Olympic Games 2012: Tennis

Every four years, the Olympic Tennis tournament attracts the world’s top stars. At Beijing 2008, Rafael Nadal won the men’s Singles, while the Williams sisters triumphed in the women’s Doubles. All the players will be aiming for a showdown on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, where the Olympic champions will be crowned. Each country is limited to a total of 12 athletes – six men and six women across all events, which includes a maximum of four athletes in each Singles and two teams in each Doubles event. From the competitors already entered into the Singles or Doubles, a maximum of two Mixed Doubles teams from any country may compete in the Mixed Doubles event.

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Olympic Games 2012: Volleyball

Volleyball made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 1964 Games for both men and women. At Beijing 2008, the gold medals were won by the USA (men) and Brazil (women). At London 2012, both the men’s and women’s Volleyball competitions begin with a preliminary phase: the 12 teams in each event are divided into two pools of six, and each team plays every other team in their pool. The eight best teams (the top four from each pool) from this phase qualifies for the knockout phase, with the winners of the semi-finals eventually going head to head for the gold. Twelve teams compete in both the men’s and women’s competitions, with 12 athletes on each team (six players and six substitutes).

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HES Adds Musical Colors to Tangerine Dream’s 2012 Tour

High End Systems products played an instrumental role in Tangerine Dream’s spring/summer “Electric Mandarine Tour 2012.” The German electronic music group, founded in 1967, has become internationally known not only for their mind-entrancing music concerts but also for their film soundtracks for Risky Business, Firestarter, Sorcerer, Near Dark, Legend and others. Tangerine Dream’s European tour ended May 10, with their next leg starting June 24 in London. The group then heads to North America June 30 and runs through the U.S. in summer.

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XL Video Steps Up To Stadiums with Coldplay

The expanded design features XL Video’s brand new Pixled F-12 LED screen product. XL Video is the first company in the UK to take delivery of this impressively bright and clear surface. The screen layout for this leg of the tour - developed by production and lighting designer Paul Normandale - features five striking circular F-12 surfaces onstage. The central one measures 9 metres in diameter and is flanked by two at 8 metres and then two at 10 metres on the outside. The two 8 metre screens are slightly angled to maximise site lines for the audience seated on the sides of the stadiums.

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Dream Theater Dramatically Lit by Clay Paky HPE1500s

The iconic 1700-seater Kallang Theatre in Singapore which has recently been refurbished to become an Asian Arts and Culture Hub, was an important stop in the band’s demanding 2012 world tour. Dream Theater is extremely popular in the region and even more so since its album, A Dramatic Turn of Events became one of the group’s most successful yet, reaching number 8 on the US Billboard 200 and number one in ten different countries. “Dream Theater’s live shows have become bigger and more diverse since they formed back in 1985,” reports band lighting designer Steve Baird.

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Over 200 Robes Shine on 2012 South African Music Awards

The 18th annual South African music Awards (SAMAs) was staged at Sun City Superbowl and lit by leading LD Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier, who included over 200 Robe moving lights in his design. It was the first time that Josh has lit the SAMAs. He was asked on-board by TV producers Nevermachine (for whom he also lights Idols), and he and Johannesburg based set designers Dream Sets – also the technical production contractor -  brought a fresh and striking look and feel to the high profile event, produced by VL Productions. All lighting equipment was supplied via Dream Sets – run by Sean and Robert Hoey.

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EVS LSM Takes Contol of Latest Super and Ultra SloMo Cameras

EVS extends its range of ultra and super-slow motion camera systems, which can be seamlessly controlled by its legendary LSM control panel. Ultra-motion cameras are currently engineered by three of the world’ leading video system manufacturers: NAC, Vision Research and Photron. Ultra-motion is used for sports broadcasting and combines the advantages of high frame rates with high-definition native resolution image quality. It allows users to capture from 150 to 2,500 frames per second and to replay them without delay. The slowed-down footage from ultra-motion cameras is used as replay footage directly following an action or incident during a live broadcast. The quality of the footage and its detail is highly precise, providing opportunities for further review and analysis.

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Broadcast Solutions GmbH Signs Distribution Agreement with slomo.tv, Inc.

System integrator and OB-Van specialist Broadcast Solutions GmbH, Germany and slomo.tv Inc., USA have signed an exclusive distribution agreement for sales and marketing of slomo.tv’s innovative line of instant replay multi-channel recording systems for broadcasting and TV studio production. The contract was signed during the annual “Open House” event at Broadcast Solutions headquarters in Bingen, Germany. Stefan Breder, CEO of Broadcast Solutions says:”This distribution contract is marking another important step in development of a reliable and innovative product portfolio. We are very pleased to represent Slomo.TV, Inc. in the years to come.

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Panasonic Releases P2 Card F Series

The P2 card contains a flash memory error correction system, which is equivalent to RAID system, to greatly strengthen the data retention reliability. Because the P2 card complies with the PC card standard (Card Bus Type-II), it can mount directly to the PC card slot of a laptop PC to read or write recording data. Its connector cleared the mount and unmount test at 30,000 time repetitions to ensure the much more rugged than an ordinary PC card. When used with the P2 Drive (AJ-PCD30 / AJ-PCD35), the recording data on the P2 cards F series can be transferred up to 1.2 Gbps.

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EVS XT3 Servers Power Beijing Television’s New 3D OBVan

The state-of-the-art OB truck is equipped with 10 HD cameras, including two Sony 3D cameras and two super slow motion cameras. Six of the cameras can be combined to create three 3D cameras. EVS’ flexible XT3 servers can be configured to support both HD production, and simultaneous 2D and 3D production. For HD production with 10 HD cameras, two XT3 servers are used in an eight-channel HD configuration with Beijing Television’s main and back-up Sony switchers. For simultaneous 2D and 3D production with five 3D cameras and four 2D cameras, the XT3 servers are used in a six-channel 3D configuration. One switcher produces the 2D signal while the other operates in 3D mode. The Sony switcher’s DVE board combines the 2D camera signals to create 3D signals.

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4K and 8K UHDTV Defined

Television progress continues. In the  late 1990s, the ITU defined the parameter values for HDTV and the 720p families. At its meeting in May 2012, ITU-R Working party 6C, the same group, made the leap forward to the parameter values for the next two generations of television formats. These are the (current name) 4K and 8K UHDTV formats - Ultra High Definition Television. They are constructed as multiples of the 1080p1920 format in ITU-R Rec. 709. WP6C is chaired by David Wood from the EBU Technology and Development Department. The new formats take advantage of future displays' greater colour range,  have the option of 'constant luminance' encoding, and allow up to 120 pictures/second. Discussions to broadcast these systems currently centre on the to date largely unused 22GHz satellite broadcast band, but terrestrial broadcasting may eventually be possible.

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