Newsletter from 21/01/2014
Sochi ‘Ready and in Olympic Mode’
MOBILE PRODUCTION
RRB Unidade Móvel HD
RRB BROADCASTING is a leading supplier of outside broadcast equipment in Brazil mainly covering live sports. RRB has specialized teams and complete mobile units with the state-of-the-art technology. Unidade Movel HD slow motion cameras, ISO camera recording, surround sound and a character generator. Among their clients are TV Globo, SBT, BAND, SporTV, premiereFC and GloboSat.
Get the specs of RRB here
Casablanca Online BR1 and BR2
Casablanca Online has the biggest fleet of mobile units for satellite transmission in Latin America. Soccer games is main focus: Casablanca Online records and broadcasts more than 1400 matches each year in Brazil and in the rest of South America. Together with NEP Casablance Online offers complete outside production solutions in Brazil. NEP developed two HD mobile units, that were designed respecting the cultural characteristics of Brazil. This partnership combines the world-renown standards of NEP’s mobile units and engineering training with Casablanca Online’s DSNG and broadcast expertise in Brazil.
Get the specs of BR1 here
Get the specs of BR2 here
Mediapro Produces TV Coverage of Dubai New Year’s Eve Firework
ProTV, supported by Mediapro, produced a unique and spectacular firework display which is set to be included in the Guinness Book of World Records. ProTv / Mediapro covered every detail of the biggest fireworks display of all time for Dubai TV and for networks from all over the world. The Dubai New Year's Eve Fireworks Display stretched over 100 kilometers along the Dubai coastline, which boasts of an archipelago of man-made island. The production featured 54 specialized technicians, 4 helicopters with RF Cameras, 1 RF Camera in each one of the 3 skyscrapers, 1 RF Camera in tPe World Island, 1 RF Camera on the beach on Palm Island, 1 HD OB VAN with 4 cameras and 1 Jimmy Jib and 2 DSNG.
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Technical Challenges Of Live Mobile Production
Miranda Technologies announces it will present an educational webinar to discuss findings of a recent survey that will help mobile production professionals better understand how to overcome the specific challenges they face. The research will be presented by industry researcher Josh Gordon, president of The Josh Gordon Group, and industry expert George Hoover, CTO of NEP. The free webinar, the second in a series hosted by Miranda, will take place on Thursday, January 23 at 11 a.m. EST and will provide valuable insights into, and rank, the technical challenges facing mobile production pros, especially setup time, power and weight limitations.
Free Registration here
Studiotech Launch Quick Deploy Mobile Production Studio
Global systems company Studiotech have launched a new Mobile Production Studio system. In the field, the new system gives quick access to all the necessary facilities to manage multi-camera events such as news gathering, conferences, concert backstage coverage, sports reports etc. It fully complies with IATA transportation regulations of size and weight, and a major advantage is its quick and easy set up and installation. The multi-camera system allows up to four cameras, broadcast or industrial, using embedded audio, up to 100 metres from the control unit. The connection for each camera is via a specially developed single cable supplied on a drum. The system requires just a single mains connection.
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STUDIO PRODUCTION
Grand Production Gets To The Pointe With Robe
Top Serbian TV producers Grand Production has invested in Robe’s new Pointe moving lights, 24 of which were supplied by Robe’s Serbian distributors Studio Berar Projekt following a specification by Grand Production Chief Lighting Designer Goran Kravic. These are the first Robe Pointes in Serbian TV, and the new fixtures went straight to work at the Studio Avala Film in Filmski Grad, Kosutnjak, Belgrade for ‘Grand Show’ which is broadcast live on Pink RTV’s Friday night prime-time, featuring a selection of popular folk bands interspersed with live guest interviews. The show is a massive hit throughout the Balkan regions.
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Ideal Systems
Founded in 1989 in Ireland, it quickly identified the Asia Pacific region for its potential and subsequently opened its first office in Hong Kong after a period of success. Ideal Systems now operates in 8 countries with 10 offices in the Asia Pacific region that includes Thailand, China, India, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and most recent, Malaysia. To date Ideal Systems have built TV Broadcast Facilities, which include DTH Platforms, more than 100 Studios and PCR installations, countless Post Production facilities and over 70 Playout Centres that span all corners of the globe. We at Ideal receive support from over 40 of the most respected global technology partners in the industry, catering to hundreds of clients in all sectors.
Learn more about Ideal Systems
Media Group International Introduces SIENNA to Its Broadcast Customers
Systems integrator Media Group International can now offer its broadcast customers seamless integration and next generation workflow after becoming an Approved SIENNA Systems integration partner. The new partnership brings enormous benefit to MGI’s customers by giving them easy access to SIENNA's cutting edge systems for News, Sport, Live Event and Mutli-Camera Television Production. Founded in 1992, Gallery offers the Post Production, Film, Music, TV and Broadcast industries a portfolio of more than 50 sophisticated software and hardware products that are sold to more than 12,000 customers across 50 countries. The company's SIENNA software family, which was launched in 2007, has revolutionised News and Sports broadcasting and has an international reputation for delivering cutting edge results in highly demanding environments.
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SPORTS
Sochi ‘Ready and in Olympic Mode’
Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president and chief executive of the local organising committee for the 2014 winter Olympics, has marked the one-month countdown to the start of the Games by declaring Sochi to be ready and “fully prepared” to welcome the sporting world. Speaking on the day that the main media centre in Sochi opened its doors to the media for the first time, Chernyshenko underlined the Russian resort’s readiness in several areas – from infrastructure through to volunteers. Late last month, the Russian cabinet approved almost $50m (€36m) in extra subsidies for the Games’ organising committee, and the total cost of hosting the Games has been estimated at $51bn.
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Sochi 2014: FUJINON Tech Support Center in Place
FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Optical Devices Division, has announced that a technical support center has been set up to provide customer service and support during both the Sochi 2014 Winter Games taking place from February 7 through February 23, 2014 and the Sochi Paralympics running from March 7-16. During the entirety of both events, Fujifilm’s Optical Devices Division will have an engineer available at its technical center to support FUJINON lens customers. The company’s Russian and German offices will also be available for customer support during the Sochi Winter and Paralympic Games.
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IOC Appoints Infront as Exclusive Media Rights Partner for Sub-Saharan Africa
Infront Sports & Media, the leading international sports marketing company, has acquired the media rights to Sub-Saharan Africa for the Olympic Games in 2014 and 2016 from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Taking a collaborative approach, Infront will partner with TV Media Sport (TVMS), the France based international sports event television and organisation agency, to fulfil the contract which refers to distribution in 43 countries and territories within the region. It covers the rights for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
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SHOWS
Wicreations Designs & Builds Spectacular Automated Effects for Mylène Farmer Tour
Belgian based automation engineering specialists Wicreations designed and created five major automation elements for Mylène Farmer’s highly visual 2013 ‘Timeless’ tour, using a combination of bespoke and standard Wicreations products. Mylène Farmer is one of the most successful French recording artists of all time. She has sold over 30 million records worldwide and had 13 number one hits in the French charts eight of them consecutive, as well as working as a model and actress during a prolific and successful career.
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Clay Paky Gets the Justin Timberlake Experience
Justin Timberlake kicked off his “20/20 Experience World Tour” in Montreal and Clay Paky Sharpys and Sharpy Washes were out in force. Solotech provided the lighting equipment. True to its name, the tour is “an experience rather than a show,” says lighting director Nick Whitehouse. “It’s very visual with lots of projection and lighting and a lot of new technology. We got pretty creative with everything and had fun putting it all together.” The tour is in support of Timberlake’s third studio album, which has a sophisticated vibe. The singer will play dates in North America, Europe, Australia and South America.
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Fireworks of Robert Juliat Followspots on 2013 Top Tours
Outside of the traditional theatre market, Robert Juliat has again proven a hot and sparkling favourite, not only for television, corporate, architectural and retail applications, but for large-scale spectaculars and live music events too. Robert Juliat is delighted to have this confirmed by Billboard Magazine’s list of Top Ten Tours for 2013 which showed that RJ followspots created fireworks (in a good way!) on no less than seven of these spectacular events. “These listings confirm once more how our followspots cut through the powerful lighting on these fabulous tours,” says Robert Juliat Sales Director, Claus Spreyer. “It also illustrates the durability and road-worthiness of spots like our Lancelot, Cyrano, Manon and Lucy which withstand the rigours of these world-wide tours so well.”
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Robe Rocks for Trans-Siberian Orchestra U.S. Tour
While the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is dubbed the ‘Wizards of Winter’ for their heavy-metal holiday songs, Show Designer Bryan Hartley wears the magician’s hat as well. He made this year’s “The Lost Christmas Eve” tour a bigger production than last year with the amazing trick of shrinking it - making three trucks and extra generators simply disappear! His secret? Switching from some standard lighting tools to over 100 pieces of Robe’s smaller-brighter-lighter ROBIN series fixtures - Pointes, LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 1200s… all supplied by VER in Los Angeles. TSO’s $20 million-plus production has performed for more than 7 million people in over 80 U.S. cities in the short duration of this leg of the tour (under 7 weeks). Because of the show’s popularity during the short holiday season, they created duplicate productions to simultaneously tour the East and West coasts of the country - both productions carrying matching rigs.
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PRODUCTS
XL Provides Step By Step Video for Wet Wet Wet Tour
XL Video supplied wide-screen projection including some of its new Panasonic 20K projectors, Catalyst control, a 4 camera / PPU package and crew for the very successful Wet Wet Wet UK arena tour in December – their first full tour since 2007. The Band’s manager Dougie Souness and Production Manager Pete Bell approached XL to assist with realising a production design created in conjunction with Lighting Designer Martin Nicholas and consultant Miguel Ribeiro, who worked closely with the band on the creation of content. At the heart of this was an 80 ft wide rear projection screen gently curved – cyclorama style - by two end-wings angled at around 15 degrees.
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BEXEL with Lawo Audio and Video Equipment in Russia and Brazil
Bexel, worldwide provider of broadcast services including video and audio equipment rentals, announced that it will apply Lawo’s audio- and video-over-IP networking technology for this year’s prominent international sports events in Russia and Brazil. The confidence in the use of Lawo equipment and services derives from experiences in the last year where Bexel, Lawo’s North America team and Lawo’s rental company ABS (Audio Broadcast Services) designed and approved a flexible fly pack solution for sports production.
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Grass Valley Supplies Auviso with Flexible and Scalable Camera Solutions
“We work with a variety of customers in live production and in our search for a new camera system, cost-effectiveness and flexibility were at the top of our list,” said Martin Elmiger, Chief Executive Officer at auviso audio visual solutions. “Grass Valley’s LDX Première cameras and XCU base stations have exceeded our expectations. They provide our clients with superior image quality in a versatile and easy to work with package— enabling us to expand our offerings. We can now service a wider market here in Switzerland and Central Europe, from low-cost to high-performance, as well as the growing 3G market with an easy upgrade.
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Sony’s New Professional UWP-D Wireless Microphone Series
Sony’s unique Hybrid Digital Processing feature on the UWP-D series offers users the sound quality of digital audio processing combined with the reliability of analog FM modulation. This also improves the transient response performance between the UWP-D transmitter and receiver, which will provide impressive natural sound quality. The new series employs fantastic wide frequency coverage, with a bandwidth of up to 72 MHz available. As a result, the UWP-D series covers 33 TV channels across Europe (272 MHz, between 470 and 790 MHz) and users can select from up to 2880 operating frequencies within this broad range.
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3D/4K ARISING
Top Japanese Post House IMAGICA Invests in Pablo Rio for 4K and HFR
Japan’s largest post-production company, IMAGICA, has purchased a Quantel Pablo Rio and Neo Nano color panel for 4K and HFR editing, color correction and finishing. Established in 1935 and headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo, IMAGICA is home to Japan’s most extensive production and post-production facilities, providing services for the film, advertising and motion picture industries.
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The CES of Everything
Video Beauty – 4K UHD screens – large and small – were almost everywhere at this year’s CES. Cable companies have been quick to point out 4K content isn’t widely available (and won’t be on their pipes for years) but firms like NanoTech showed how they could repurpose – not upscale – entertainment that looks like native 4K and smoothly streams to the home’s typical 10mb broadband connection. Already Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Ultraflix, YouTube and others have said they have a strong and rapidly growing offering of native and repurposed (not merely upscaled) content for the consumer and the screen folks were happy to show you the dramatic difference at CES.
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KVM Extenders for 4K
For the first time, Guntermann & Drunck offers a KVM extension for 4K resolutions. While others still talk about it, G&D is doing it. They already offer a 4K resolution, in order to provide AV professionals with a future-proof video resolution already today. The ability of the DL-Vision KVM extenders to transmit even Ultra HD at full frame rate (60 Hz) makes it a capable extension system in the field of professional video signal processing and at workstations for monitoring comprehensive control room processes in different broadcast applications. Thanks to the UHD resolution many application processes can be displayed simultaneously on a single large format display.
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