The ongoing pandemic has affected sports and live events everywhere, and esports has also had to adapt. The international esports company ESL recently worked with partners Drone Champions League (DCL) to convert a planned series of in-person league events to an entirely virtual format, with both competitors and talent located remotely. To help support and deliver the event, Rocket Surgery Virtual Productions (RSVP), Ross Video’s dedicated virtual productions division, was challenged to convert the physical in-venue DCL world into an eye-catching virtual studio set to be used throughout the broadcast. 

Peter Canning from Dublin-based lighting and visual design specialist High Res specified 24 x Astera Titan Tube wireless LED fixtures to provide highly atmospheric lighting for an eye-catching video featuring singer Hozier recorded at Croke Park stadium … one of many high points during a special RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) Comic Relief telethon. The event united the cream of Irish comedy and entertainment to raise a laugh and much-needed funds for the Irish charity sector on Friday 26th June.

Swedish full production and rental company Soundstar, based in Skövde, invested in some of Robe’s MegaPointes and Spiiders at the end of last year as they needed lighting fixtures with “more punch” than their rental stock at the time. The company – normally – delivers audio, lighting, video, rigging, and has an OB-truck, for the full complete technical solution, and is working on a wide selection of corporate and industrial events and conferences. It was founded in 1991 by Per Larsson initially as a DJ service company and has steadily grown into a solidly well-respected production house. “We wanted fixtures weighing around 25kg for easy handling by one person,” explained Soundstar’s Daniel Wiklund.

Since 2004, Chinese Man has been one of the most innovative bands on the French trip hop scene. Originally from Aix-en-Provence, the now Marseille-based band blends a potent mix of hip-hop, funk, dub, reggae and jazz together with a big emphasis on beats and samples. It also runs its own independent record label, the eponymous Chinese Man Records (CMR), featuring a whole host of contemporary French artists.
 

With Finland allowing live events within government restrictions, the nation’s favourite country artists, Steve ‘N’ Seagulls continue to do what they do best, touring the country with the bluegrass reworkings of rock and metal anthems that won them YouTube stardom, all mixed from a super-compact dLive Wings system.
 

On 11^th August, the live events industry across the UK will come together in solidarity to host a series of creative action to help save the live events and entertainment sector, which is on the verge of collapsing without financial support from the government. Hundreds of venues are expected to turn their lights red, along with other creative activities being staged in over 20 cities across the UK to symbolise the industry going into red alert, and a final call to action titled ‘Throw us a line’ will be taking centre stage on London’s South Bank.

The Dante system, a technology on the rise, allows the multiplication of signals in a network of many Dante devices. However, with the growth of a network, it is becoming more and more complicated to visualize what is happening on the network.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic effect on our lives and industry, lighting professionals are taking the downtime as an opportunity to educate themselves and prepare for the eventual reopening. Elation Professional is offering just such an opportunity with launch of a new online Learning Center available on the website. Designed to provide lighting professionals with easy-to-access learning options, the new resource site is full of free educational and training material.

Dejero has brought onboard new European partners in Ireland, Hungary and Portugal, strengthening its market presence and local support offering. The company’s expanding network of regional channel partners will enable Dejero to provide its full range of solutions and services in support of the delivery of mission-critical live video and real-time data to European broadcast and media organizations, as well as other organizations that need reliable connectivity.

With Covid-19 lockdowns worldwide and health authorities urging people to self-isolate and practice social distancing on a massive scale as part of an enormous effort to #FlattenTheCurve of this global pandemic … we are reaching out to industry friends, colleagues, associates, partners, etc., and asking them to share their #StayAtHome and #QuarantineAndChill activities with us during this extraordinary time.

Tokyo-based leading expert in motion picture and multimedia broadcasting production NTV Technical Resources Inc (NiTRo) is a major technical provider to the Japanese broadcasting industry with a range of media services, including production engineering, post-production and broadcast operations and management. Following the launch of 8K broadcast channels in Japan in December 2018, NiTRo broke ground on a new state-of-the-art facility for 8K/UltraHD2 post-production in response to a surge in client requests for editing and delivery of 8K content. During development of the studio, NiTRo examined robust and flexible solutions that could manage both 8K/UltraHD2 and 4K/UltraHD post-production, without requiring separate tools for each workflow. In pursuit of the most streamlined workflow possible, NiTRo selected AJA KUMO 3232-12G for the device’s versatile signal control capabilities to route 8K or 4K SDI signals throughout the new video editing facility, with the added benefit of 12G-SDI connectivity for simplified cabling and transport of high-bandwidth content.

The SRT Alliance, established by Haivision to support the SRT Open Source project, announces that Grass Valley, Evertz, Xilinx, and Primestream have joined the SRT Alliance to show their support and adoption of the SRT open source protocol. Over 50 industry-leading organizations have turned to SRT and joined the SRT Alliance over the last few months, bringing the total number of members to more than 400 companies.

TAG Video Systems announced that it has joined the Streaming Video Alliance (the Alliance), an industry forum comprised of leading companies from the online video ecosystem. TAG joined the Alliance to stay close to the heart of steaming technologies and participate in the forum’s work groups which are dedicated to developing best practice solutions for the highest-quality video experience possible.

IHSE announces the launch of the DisplayPort Dual-Head KVM extender with a range of models in the Draco vario series. The new extender enables video transmission of two DisplayPort including keyboard and mouse signals over a single duplex fiber optic cable or a Cat X cable and includes keyboard and mouse control. This reduces the complexity of an installation, saves cost, space, cabling and reduces the need for matrix ports in a KVM matrix switch installation.

PWL’s creative director Luc Peumans produced the lighting and video design and worked closely with Dries Hermans of Deusjevoo on the set design, the latter involving substantial quantities of inbuilt practical lighting. These custom LED set elements were all painstakingly installed by the PWL team working in close conjunction with Deusjevoo … a complex and diligent job that paid off with vibrant, eye-catching results!

Céline Cuypers designed and engineered a special wheel lighting and audio trigger control.