Newsletter from 01/06/2012
ESC 2012: The Winner in Baku is Sweden
MOBILE PRODUCTION
Engineer Service STARBIRD
Engineer-Service Ltd. was founded in 2000 year by four television engineers whose total working experience in television field was more than 100 years. Today Engineer-Service Ltd. is one of the leading companies on television market of Ukraine and also a well known system integrators in the field of digital television technologies. Engineer Services is active in the rental business from Camcorders up to HD OBVans. Their latest addition to their OB fleet is STARBIRD.
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Red TX Revamps Its Popular RED I Mobile Recording Truck
Like its sister truck, Red I is equipped with a Studer Vista 8 Digital mixing system. Recording is carried out via Pyramix, Pro Tools and Logic, and there is also an extensive range of digital effects on board. The truck also includes 96 x 24/96 remote mic amps, with additional blocks of 48 (up to 240) available for larger projects. All microphone inputs are 24bit/96kHz with full DSP on every channel. The interior of RED I has been transformed and an internal wall has been moved to create more space for the audio engineers and clients. New PMC ALM 1 active 7.1 surround sound monitoring has been installed and the acoustics and insulation have been improved to ensure that those working on board are not distracted by external noise.
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EMF & United - Technical Service Provider @ UEFA EURO 2012
Euro Media France will dispatch a large amount of audio and video equipment to Poland and the Ukraine, specifically 5 OB trucks, more than 100 cameras and around 100 technicians in order to cover the 40th European Football Championships, taking place from the 8th June to the 1st July this year. United is sending three satellite vans and one OB truck to Poland and Ukraine for NOS, Brazilian TV Globo International and Infostrada Sports to record programmes on the European Championship.
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TV Record relies on Grass Valley and Orad in London
TV Record, Brazil’s second-largest television network, will deploy a complete high-definition (HD) production system from Grass Valley™ on-site in London for live and delayed coverage of the country’s athletes competing at the various sporting events this summer in London on its TV Record channel. TV Record already has expanded its existing Orad channel branding installation to support the upcoming Olympic news broadcasts. The expanded Orad installation will be utilized to broadcast on-air graphics in HD from TV Record’s special onsite Olympic broadcast operation in London and out of its large São Paulo virtual studio.
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STUDIO PRODUCTION
The German Idol's Finale Broadcast from the MMC Studio 30/31
The Finale of "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" and the other nine DSDS episodes were broadcast live from MMC’s studio 30/31 on behalf of Grundy Light Entertainment. A total of 13 cameras were used for the HD-production, which was directed by Volker Weicker. These included five Grass Valley (GVG) LDK 8000 cameras (equipped with Canon EFP 27x to 72x lenses) on Vinten Quattro pedestals, two GVG LDK 8000 handheld cameras with an Abacus Stadium Lens or an 11x lens for a total view, one LDK 8000 elite wireless Steadicam with a Canon ENG 14x lense, one Spidercam and two Sportscam.
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Let’s Dance 2012 with mo2 and coolux Pandoras Box
For this year’s season of the German primetime TV hit show „Let’s Dance“, mo2 Design GmbH employed a variety of the latest coolux Pandoras Box products, including coolux’s brand new media encryption technology, to realise their lighting design vision. The classic ballroom aesthetic of the previous season’s Florian Wieder designed studio set was generally kept, with the addition of a few subtle changes. One interesting detail of the lighting setup include the use of thousands of little NOVA LED sphere strips, that were hanging from the ceiling to add an attractive softness to the overall dance floor’s appearance.
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twofour's `The Angel´ at Wimbledon Studios with RTR
Roll To Record is the supplier of technical infrastructure and crew to Wimbledon Film and TV Studios, London’s newest TV studio, which offers SD or full HD and 5.1 audio recording facilities plus production offices and other high spec studio facilities, with each installation tailored to the specific needs of any show. Equipment supplied on ‘The Angel’, recorded in front of a studio audience, included Sony HDC-1500 HD cameras, BRC Hot Head cameras and Sony VTs. Jo Taylor, Production Executive, Twofour, said, “Wimbledon Film and TV Studios and Roll To Record provided us with a bespoke technical set up made especially with our series requirements in mind.”
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SPORTS
EURO Opening Ceremony to Set Magical Tone
The concept for the UEFA EURO 2012 opening ceremony has been developed by Marco Balich, Olympic Producer and president of events and ceremonies company Filmmaster Events. Balich created the opening and closing ceremonies of the Turin Olympics in 2006 and is also known in Ukraine, having produced the opening ceremony of the Donbass Arena in Donetsk in 2009. The 12-minute show will combine heritage and innovation, to bring sport and culture together and mark the start of a historical event, the first UEFA European Football Championship to be staged in central and eastern Europe. It will also promote the participating nations together with key EURO values: unity, rivalry and passion.
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Camera Corps Gets Tactical for UEFA EURO 2012
A 20-strong team of Camera Corps technicians will install cameras at four venues in each of the two host countries. These will feed live video direct to the international broadcast centres in Warsaw and Kiev. “Each of the eight venues will have two Hitachi DK-H32 cameras on VHR heads looking down the respective goal lines,” details Senior Support Technician David Sisson. “We will also be installing tactical cameras to capture pictures from the rear of each goal. Each of these will be a DK-H32 fitted with a wide-angle lens, again on VHR head. A similar configuration will be used to capture venue-wide shots. For external beauty shots we will field Hitachi DK-H100 cameras on our new Type 2B weatherproof head. Each of these will be mounted on a crane looking towards the stadium from the outside.
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Panasonic @ the London 2012 Olympic Games
With its full line-up of highdefinition (HD) equipment, Panasonic will provide strong support for the operation of the world’s largest sporting event, at sporting venues, broadcasting sites and homes, in cooperation with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and the Olympic Broadcasting Services London (OBSL). Panasonic will also bring the firstever 3D Olympic Games to homes, based on the 3D technical partnership with theIOC and the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).
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Olympic Games 2012: Taekwondo
Expect plenty of excitement at ExCeL when the Taekwondo competitors take to the court at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The protagonists compete on a mat inside a eight-by-eight-metre zone, over three rounds of two minutes. The aim is to land accurate kicks and punches on the scoring area of their opponent: one point is awarded for a valid attack to the trunk protector, two points for a valid turning kick to the trunk protector, three points for a valid kick to the head, and four points for a valid turning kick to the head.
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SHOWS
ESC 2012 – Rising to Every Challenge
Since mid-April, 60 carpenters, decorators, electricians, painters, draughtsmen and fitters have been working shifts day and night to create the stage concept. One particular challenge faced by project managers Benjamin Neuen and Fabian Bäter in Hamburg this year was the planning and preparations. The unfamiliar situation on-site in Azerbaijan, the distance to the host city and the special import requirements meant that the MCI workshops had to plan more time for the complete realisation of the project and begin with the preliminary construction work as early as January. Filled with the individual stage elements, the last of 25 40-ft long trailers headed off for Baku in mid-March. A lorry was also required to transport the conveyor podium. To keep transport efforts to a minimum, the individual decorative elements were not assembled and installed until their arrival in Baku.
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Victorian Opera Uses grandMA2 for “Cinderella”
Recently the Victorian Opera presented a new production of “Cinderella”, a traditional pantomime for the whole family. Based on the fable, Cinderella’s adventures were given a special treatment by Victorian Opera Music Director Richard Gill, who has written both the story and songs. This production saw pantomime return to the surrounds of Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne. Cinderella featured a stellar lineup of artists from Victorian Opera and the world of music theatre. Lighting designer for the production was Richard Vabre with Resolution X supplying the equipment. This production gave Victorian Opera’s head electrician and programmer Peter Darby an opportunity to spec a grandMA2 control package.
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Martin Gets Mötley at Hard Rock in Vegas
Mötley Crue has a reputation for fun and the Hard Rock shows were no exception having been described as a ‘musical and visual experience to haunt their audience.’ The show was packed with performance art, production gags and special effects from aerialists to pyrotechnics to big-time strobe effects, always a key element of Crue shows. Sooner Routhier and Robert Long have been co-production designers for Mötley Crue since 2010 and earlier this year had a run of 12 shows at The Joint at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas.
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The Rock N Roll Allstars’ Global Tour with AKG
The Rock N Roll Allstars include Gene Simmons of Kiss, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Gilby Clarke of Guns-N-Roses, Billy Duffy of The Cult, Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple, Ed Roland of Collective Soul, Steve Stevens of the Billy Idol band and Mike Inez of Alice in Chains, in addition to Sorum. Sorum’s drum kit boasts two double kick drums, five toms and a very large collection of cymbals. With such an elaborate drum set, Sorum wanted to ensure it was enjoyed visually as much as it would be for its sound. The pure epicness of the tour itself, combined with the enthusiasm of the fans, made sound a number-one factor for Sorum and the Allstars. When looking for a set of mics to capture the drums, Sorum required three factors: ease of use, durability and visual appeal for the perfect set up. AKG’s collection of microphones proved to be the perfect match.
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PRODUCTS
RAVENNA Stretches out into China
Following Telos Alliance’ RAVENNA partnership announcement at NAB, RAVENNA now arrives in Far East: Infomedia, the leading professional audio technology company in China, just recently signed-up for RAVENNA partnership. RAVENNA, as an innovative technology, offers the flexibility and scalability of an IP-based protocol, but adds accurate synchronization of digital audio clock together with a fixed and ultra-low latency. RAVENNA offers even more features which are also very important to radio customers, i.e. RAVENNA provides high-availability of network connectivity with two network ports in one module. That’s why Infomedia decided to become a RAVENNA developer’s affiliate.
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Clear-Com Intercom for Ban-Ban TV's HD OBVan
The Eclipse-PiCo permits the BAN-BAN TV crew to have faster access to communications and information when covering a live event or news story on location. This is important because in addition to being a cable TV provider for the Harima region, BAN-BAN TV also runs a community station where it produces local news and events coverage. When the company sought to update its OB van to HD, it also wanted a more flexible intercom system. Its previous system only offered the ability to perform a call page to all crew members. With the Eclipse-PiCo, provided by MTC, Clear-Com’s distributor in Japan, BAN-BAN TV now has a reliable system that has tailored communication paths to allow a quick response when issues occur, especially since only one person is assigned to each position.
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New Mix-Edit-Feature for AURUS
“Mix-edit is a great feature for all our customers using AURUS for production and post-production work. For example if you have a perfect mix of a chorus it can be reused easily between subsequent verses to produce an excellent overall mix without the need to remix the same chorus over and over again”, said Dr. Klaus Scholz, one of the managing directors of STAGETEC. Earlier versions of AURUS’ dynamic automation were capable of removing sections of automation from time-code based mixes, but not able to paste them into a new mix. The mix-edit feature is part of the new firmware 3.60 that will be released by the end of May. Existing customers will receive the release on request or with their next routine maintenance.
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3D ARISING
UEFA Champions League Final 2012: World Feed in HD and 3D
Sky Deutschland won the bid to serve as host broadcaster last year with preparations beginning in October. In February those preparations became a 24/7 operation, as the team began working with the UEFA, the Allianz Arena, international rights holders and German OB production company TopVision. TopVision provided 90 skilled people and its HD OBVans HD Ü1 (for the 3D production), HD Ü2 (world feed B & C) and HD Ü4 (Sky Deutschland unilateral) together with four tender trucks. But in a first for a Champions League event, the main production gallery (world feed A) was produced in a spacy container cabin to give the director visibility of the live signals from more than 40 cameras in the arena plus the various replay signals.
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EMG-3D for the 2 Week Roland Garros Tournament
During the 2 week Roland Garos tennis tournament, EMG will provide the 3D coverage of the matches on the Philippe Chatrier court, as well as the 2D coverage on courts 3 and 6 for France Télévisions. EMG has also signed a contract with the public service channels to make available and to operate the post production equipment for the important sporting events of the summer (Olympic Games and the Tour de France). Digital Vidéo Sud (DVS), a subsidiary of Euro Media France, will be present with its new Superloupe HD+, capable of producing slow motion images of up to 2000 images.
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Can Communicate Goes Wild with Quantel Pablo
Can Communicate has pushed the boundaries of 3D television content. The company operates on two Quantel Pablos, sharing workflow via a GenePool, assisted by its recent investment in a Neo grading panel. ‘Safari Park Adventure’, filmed at Woburn Safari Park, follows the day-to-day activities of the park’s keepers and animals. The series was shot on Sony P1s with Canon HJ22 lenses, producing over 300 hours of footage for the ten part documentary. Production Director at Can Communicate, David Wooster said, “‘Safari Park Adventure’ was a huge challenge, particularly as we had to deliver the first six, one hour episodes weekly, so we were working two systems 24/7. Our Pablos and Neo panel held up really well throughout the process.”
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