Audio Media - September 2008 - (Page 55) Hollyoaks goes Hd > the network, basically. We didn’t want work to tape at the dubbing stage any more, we wanted to stream all the pictures straight from the production SAN, and, put simply, the VCube HD is the high-definition video playback tool that integrates best with Pyramix. Similarly, with Ramses, I liked the integration with Pyramix, and again, the options to customise it.” “Also, integrating an untried desk into a Pyramix system could have caused a lot of heartache,” adds Andy Murray, “whereas we knew the Ramses would work. Of course the other thing that’s beneficial about that kind of arrangement is that you’ve got one set of people supplying your kit, who you can go to for help if it’s not working. Naming no names, but we’ve all heard of situations where there are two manufacturers supplying equipment that turns out not to work properly together, and all they do is point the finger of blame at each other. The guys at eMerging, by contrast, have been great. During the install, if we’ve had a problem, they’ve just dealt with it, which is what you want from a supplier.” Andy Murray: “Channel 4 didn’t request 5.1 audio, so it’s just stereo at the moment. Of course, the Pyramixes will handle 5.1 OK, so we’ll just need some extra monitors when the time comes.” “Channel 4 will probably start looking at the audio in about a year’s time,” adds Jamie Hall. Ironically, given the tapeless nature of much of Lime’s new workflow, the final output format for broadcast is still a tape – Channel 4 does not yet have the facilities to receive files for broadcast tapelessly. But aside from this minor issue, everyone at Lime is pleased with the new systems. Chris Davey expresses relief that despite the far-reaching nature of the works and the punishing Hollyoaks schedule, transmission has not been delayed or interrupted once. “That’s pretty impressive, when you consider everything that’s been going on here. Hollyoaks viewers wouldn’t know, which is how it should be.” And Jamie Hall looks back on what Lime We’ve G ot I t… Taped Behind the Hollyoaks scenes. have achieved with pride: “The move to HD gave us this fantastic chance to review the way we did things, and we’ve made good on that.” Andy Murray and Chris Lovgreen concur. Andy: “This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; it was never going to come along again.” “So we had to do it right,” adds Chris, “And we did.” ∫ Following a dry run, when Lime successfully tested the new equipment by producing a complete five-episode block of Hollyoaks in HD, the new systems were installed throughout Spring 2008. Jamie Hall: “We did everything we would normally do, in the same time we normally have to do it – except that we did it in HD. And then we just down-converted those episodes to SD before transmission. It also gave us an opportunity to hold internal viewings of the episodes we’d shot in HD, to make sure we were happy with the look of the show: that the sets still stood up, that the make-up was OK, and so on.” In the end, six new video editing suites based around Final Cut Pro were installed at Lime, together with six new audio dubbing suites, each with a Pyramix post-production system, a VCube HD, and a Ramses controller. Five of these have eight-fader Ramses, while the master dubbing suite is equipped with a 16-fader model. There’s an additional audio suite for tracklaying only, running a VCube HD and a Pyramix Native System. Everything integrates with the production SAN, based on a 102-Terabyte Data Direct array, and tapes are only employed at the ingest stage, when rushes are being imported from XDCAM location shoots – all of the material shot on the new Sony HDC-1500 cameras at Lime’s HQ is ingested directly to the SAN via four HD production galleries. Hollyoaks began transmitting in HD at the beginning of June. Jamie Hall’s goal of ‘virtually tapeless’ production has been reached: as Chris Davey puts it succinctly, “All the media, audio, and video, is now dealt with over the network.” OMF files can be extracted from the rushes on the SAN for the dubbing editors to work from, as before, and dubbing is carried out to Final Cut-edited video files being played back on the VCube HDs. The finished audio tracks are laid back to Final Cut Pro via the SAN, and the final export of a consolidated episode of Hollyoaks takes place from Final Cut Pro. The only thing obviously missing from the HD production environment at Lime at present is 5.1 monitoring in the dubbing suites, but it turns out that this is deliberate. I nstallation audio media september 2008 55 http://www.zaxcom.com http://www.zaxcom.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.