The Gray Room at Special Event Services’ headquarter facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is usually abuzz with activity as the live production and touring company preps gear for upcoming tours and festivals. With the COVID shutdown in March however, the warehouse area turned eerily quiet. Nevertheless, the downtime provided Special Event Services vice president and co-founder Jeff Cranfill the chance to realize a long held ambition for the space.

As of 1 July 2020, Media Online GmbH, based in Frankfurt (Main), is now trading as Broadcast Solutions Produkte und Service GmbH, thus moving even closer to the parent company of the Broadcast Solutions Group. Following the takeover of Media Online GmbH by Broadcast Solutions GmbH in 2017, the name change is a further step towards bundling and expanding the company's competencies.

The German Football Association (DFB) informed Infront today that it will end its very successful and lengthy partnership with Infront and terminate or discontinue all existing contracts. Infront contests the validity of this cancellation and insists on the full completion of the current contracts with the DFB. Infront has severe doubts about the methods and motives of the investigative agency Esecon, on whose interim report the DFB is basing this proposed cancellation. The DFB said it based its decision on allegations of "potentially damaging activities". The interim report of Esecon – which Infront has not been given access to – apparently accuses Infront of gaining undue benefits from improper gifts to DFB employees.

In stark contrast to video, TV and the movies, Virtual Reality (VR) applications promise experiences that are not only more intense but, above all, interactive and individual too. To launch VR on its way to a huge consumer market share, a considerable amount of R&D work needs to be done. That was precisely the mission of Immersify, a European R&D concortium made up of PSNC – Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (Poland), Spin Digital Video Technologies GmbH (Germany), Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes (France), Visualization Center C (Sweden) and Ars Electronica Futurelab (Austria). After three years, the Immersify project that was funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program is now coming to an end. Some of the project’s results were demonstrated one last time in a live stream from Poland to the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K in Austria on June 17th, concluding the developing phase of the project. While Immersify officially ended with a panel at Festival de Cannes’ Marché du Film – Cannes XR, which was being held virtually due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The project partners are already continuing their research on future developments in the field of immersive media.
 

Ski mountaineer and runner Anton "Toni" Palzer has crossed the three main peaks of the Watzmann mountain in his native Germany in a new record time of 2h 47m. Here is all you need to know:
- Palzer took the high-alpine tour from Wimbachbrücke (634m) via Watzmannhaus (1930m) to Hocheck (2651m) shortly before 7am on Friday June 26 then scaled the high point at 2,713m, the Southern tip (2,712m) before starting his descent over the Wimbachgrieß (1327m) down to the Wimbachbrücke.

The Norwegian Ski Federation has extended its exclusive international media rights agreement with Infront, a Wanda Sports Group company, for FIS World Cup events, including men's and women's alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and nordic combined. The renewal takes the existing partnership beyond 30 years and further solidifies Infront’s leading position in winter sports.

Big Picture, an NEP Live Events Company, announces its premium live event studio offering based in Sydney, Australia. We are joining forces with production partners South West Solutions and Ikonix to offer the most technologically advanced and connected virtual event space in Australia to support clients to deliver broadcast-quality online event, corporate theatre, and live performance experiences.  The partnership is a response to the increase in demand for solutions to move events and performances into the online space at the highest quality whilst expanding reach and interaction with remote audiences in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Volksoper is colorful, multifaceted and joyful, providing superior musical entertainment. This historic venue is home to not only opera and theater facilities, but also a to a recording studio and state-of-the-art control room — one of the few performance theaters in Europe equipped with recording and control facilities. And those facilities now also boast a brand-new Lawo mc²56 console, commissioned by Lawo technicians using remote-control technology.

They say the stars shine brighter in Hollywood and thanks to Samsung Display technology, Hollywood Park will be the brightest of them all. Samsung’s outdoor LED products were exclusively used to build SoFi Stadium’s 70,000 square-foot dual-sided center-hung videoboard and five levels of fascia display which will be used to elevate the fan experience to unparalleled heights. The state-of-the-art videoboard not only features the most LEDs ever used in a sports or entertainment venue, but also has the first and only 4K end-to-end video production in a stadium.

Since 1954, the Institute has hosted weekly outdoor concerts at a country park in Chopin’s birthplace, Zelazowa Wola, offering performances featuring the world’s most prominent classical musicians. Due to this year’s restrictions on live events, the decision was taken to bring the concerts online, with pianists performing in the park’s manor house and streamed via YouTube Live. Live production specialist, Transmisjelive has been responsible for the recitals’ live production for several years, and helped to make the move to an online production format. “As well as moving to an indoor and more intimate location, we also had to manage social distancing requirements,” explains Transmisjelive’s Artur Kuszel. “We reduced the number of personnel on site to a minimum, both for filming in the performance room and in the OB vehicle on site, kept all gear disinfected and made sure the room was well ventilated.”

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport in the capital of Germany is about to open – operation will start on October 31st. Until then, the last infrastructural measures and security precautions are in full swing. In order to ensure maximum access and system security, the airport management team chose the KVM system from IHSE, which guarantees reliable and smooth operation.

In a strategic move decided in January and prior to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, the company is to return to their original and core business offering of equipment rental to the film and television industry. As part of the process, Video Europe is officially exiting the outside broadcast and flypack services market and is selling their OB trucks. The restructure will enable the company to refocus on three business channels: digital cinema, edit equipment rental and broadcast hire. No staff will be lost.

MCR Broadcast Hire and Video Europe Ltd today announce they have entered into a strategic partnership, formalising the existing and longstanding relationship between Mike Ransome and Steve Green and aligning the two companies’ business operations. Steve Green and Matt Marner, directors at Video Europe, have entered into a shareholding agreement in MCR Broadcast Hire alongside MCR’s Managing Director, Mike Ransome. Video Europe has invested significant funds into the live broadcast sector over the past few years and considers the alignment of MCR’s business a natural fit.

Sony Professional Europe the global technology and innovation leader in Live Production solutions, has partnered with Singular.Live, providers of an advanced digital overlay platform, to give users of Sony’s Virtual Production, a cloud-based live production tool, access to Singular’s template-based graphic overlays directly from the Sony Virtual Production interface.

Atomos and Z CAM have today enabled 12-bit 5.8K Apple ProRes RAW over HDMI recording on the Ninja V HDR monitor-recorder in combination with the Flagship series Z CAM E2-F6, E2-F8 and E2-S6 large sensor cinema cameras, as well as 4K ProRes RAW recording from the Micro 4/3 E2, E2-M4 and E2 C models.