Newsletter from 18/10/2010
FIFA 3D Awarded - Sport&Concerts in 3D - New 3G/3D OBVan - IBC 2010 - SkyNews HD - Aida & Sting - UEFA Euro 2012
“The 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in 3D” wins Judges’ Award at IBC 2010
Teamwork as Key to Success: FIFA, Sony, Host Broadcast Services (HBS) and ESPN have jointly won the prestigious Judges’ Award – one of the IBC’s Innovation Awards, at the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam. IBC is the leading international forum for the electronic media industry. The four partners received the special prize titled “The 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in 3D” in recognition of their fruitful collaboration which led to a remarkable “first” in sports broadcasting: 25 matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in South Africa were being covered in 3D. The decision of FIFA to introduce 3D to the broadcast mix follows a series of major technological breakthroughs and successful trials of live 3D sports coverage over the last two years.
Grass Valley Editing Gets into the Swing for the Ryder Cup
Leading outside broadcast facilities provider Telegenic built its Ryder Cup coverage – seen across Europe and North America – around a network of Grass Valley™ EDIUS® edit workstations. The networked facilities handled all of the onsite editing for highlights and replay packages, including 3D coverage. "The 2010 Ryder Cup held at Celtic Manor was covered by BSkyB in 3D using 21 stereoscopic camera rigs," comments Robin Broomfield, 3D Development Manager, BSkyB. "One of these rigs was a 3D Polecam supplied by Chris Taber of Pedestal TV. The Polecam was located on the first tee and gave spectacular 3D shots of the crowd in the stands and the players teeing off. This was the first time a 3D Polecam has been used by BSkyB on one of the 3D sport events but has given a new dimension to the otherwise low angles that look so good in 3D."
TopVision HD OBVans are driving together with Sony Professional into the Third Dimension
Since February 2010 the first 3D OBVan of TopVision is OnAir. On board are ten complete 3D sets consisting of Sony HDC-1000, HDC-1500 and HDC-P1 cameras and a whole range of Canon lenses. The investment of TopVision in 3D equipment was getting its “future prove stamp” at the IFA press conference of the Deutsche Telekom on 3rd September in Berlin: At the press conference the plans of the DFL were announced that from January onwards every week one Bundesliga top game will be produced and transmitted in 3D. And both rights holders (Deutsche Telekom via its IPTV platform T-Entertain and SKY Germany via its Pay TV platform) will distribute the 3D signal to their customers.
P+S TECHNIK 3D Rigs Played Key Role for Fanta4 in 3D
P+S TECHNIK, a manufacturer of 3D beam splitter rigs, supplied its groundbreaking Freestyle Rig and its Standard Rig for the largest live coverage of a 3D concert event ever. The concert by "Die Fantastischen Vier", Germany's leading hip-hop group, was broadcast live in 3D by satellite to 91 cinemas across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium. DVS enabled a seamless stereoscopic workflow at the event: In the 3D production chain, DVS’s video server VENICE was used both for ingest and play-out in the OBVan. DVS integrated STAN, the stereoscopic analyzer from the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute into its video server. The whole team benefitted from massive time savings thanks to VENICE’s high-speed capabilities and appreciated its multi-channel options that allow for both ingest and play-out of stereoscopic 3D material in HD.
NEP Gemini 1 & 2 HD and 3D
Gemini 1 and 2 are two large double expanding scanners that work together to offer a complete program making experience where previously 3 trucks would have been needed. Two large production and sound areas accommodating up to 30 people in Gemini 1, the production and presentation truck and 30 people seated in Gemini 2 the VTR/Edit truck. The Geminis offer a rare combination of the very latest 3Gbs, 3D ready technology, in over 1400 square feet of floor space and are connected using only 10 Stratos Multicore fibers for full talkback and router integration and control. Gemini 1 and 2 consolidate what is normally a three-truck setup for Sky Sports’ coverage of the 2010 Premier League into a two-truck show.
A look below the surface at IBC
1300 exhibitors, 48000 visitors and 1000 journalists visited Amsterdam this September. The result was the biggest display of shiny new products and ground-breaking technologies ever seen at IBC. Another hall was opened at the last minute just to fit it all in. 3D, Super Hi-Vision, 4K, Fibre and 3 Gb/s distribution, Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), workflow tools, IPTV and mobile devices, all combined with the growing alternative of using standard IT technologies means the customer has more choices than ever. Great news! Or is it? In a competitive market that is changing so quickly, and where investment capital is so limited, one wrong purchasing decision today can mean disaster tomorrow. For suppliers, this range of choices and increased uncertainty makes it harder to persuade customers to invest with them, based on technology alone. So increasingly they are differentiating themselves by the services they can provide.
Sky News: HD Tapeless Workflow from Field to Playout
SkyNews is a 24-hour domestic and international satellite television news broadcaster. It was launched in 1989 and has established itself as a world-class breaking news service with a spirit for innovation. It currently provides news to around 145 million people in 36 countries in Europe alone, with distribution across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. After the successful HD broadcast on the Sky Satellite platform and HD online streaming of Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, as well as an increasing customer demand for high quality programming with the intensity and vividness of HD, there was a collective view at Sky News to launch a permanent HD news channel.
STAGETEC Sponsors AIDA Live Production
On the 1st of October 2010, Swiss TV produced the opera Aida am Rhein (Aida on the Rhine) live on air. This was the third live production of a famous opera where the individual scenes only come together to form a whole on the viewers’ screens at home. A large digital audio network comprising numerous STAGETEC components and integrating three digital mixing consoles ensured exceptional sound quality for Verdi’s opera. The numerous scenes in Basel – including various suites, terraces and rooms at the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, the banks of the Rhine around the Mittlere Brücke (Middle Bridge) and even on ships decks and pontoons on the Rhine – made this staging a remarkable logistic and technical feat. According to Rolf Allenbach, project manager and representative of tpc, who acted as executive technical service provider, the project made the highest demands on the audio systems in particular: While the orchestra performed in a fixed location (the hotel’s ballroom), the other participants – soloists, the main choir, and the additional choir – were spread all over the area and were sometimes several hundred meters apart.
Sting’s strings sing with DPA 4099s
Sting’s front of house engineer Howard Page is using a large quantity of DPA 4099 clip mics across the string section for Sting’s Symphonicity word tour. Accompanied by a full symphonic orchestra, Symphonicity sees Sting performing new arrangements of his greatest hits as well as more unknown work. Page is convinced that the DPA 4099 instrument mic series will revolutionise orchestral miking. “The beautiful thing about using the DPA 4099 is you turn it up and it sounds like a violin. Word about the DPA 4099 is, believe me, getting around,” he says. “Everyone raves about how the strings sound on this show, and the reviews all mention how rich the orchestra sounds.”
UEFA Executive Committee - Minsk meeting decisions
On 4 October the UEFA Executive Committee completed its meeting in Minsk and has approved the official match schedule for the forthcoming UEFA EURO 2012 final round between 8 June and 1 July 2012 in Poland and Ukraine. In Poland, Wroclaw and Poznan will host three group stage matches, while Gdansk will host three group stage matches and a quarter-final. Warsaw will stage three group stage matches, including the opening Group A game featuring Poland, a quarter-final and a semi-final. Poland will play their second group match in Warsaw, and their third in Wroclaw. In Ukraine, Kharkiv and Lviv will host three group stage matches. Donetsk will host three group stage matches, a quarter-final and a semi-final. Kyiv will play host to three group stage matches, a quarterfinal and the UEFA EURO 2012 final. Ukraine will play their opening Group D match in Kyiv, and the other two group matches in Donetsk.