In Broadcast - March 2015 - 20

20

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 3 | March 2015

InNews
Fletcher Sports
GV LDX Slo-Mo
CAN: Fletcher
Sports
has
purchased four Grass Valley LDX
XS ultra slow-motion cameras and
four XCU XtremeSpeed XF Fibre
transmission units.
Fletcher Sports VP Dan Grainge
said: "As we sought to upgrade
our slow motion cameras from
3X to 6X speed, the decision to go
with Grass Valley's LDX XS camera
system was an easy one. The
ergonomics, and the look and feel
of the camera make it stand out
and the components are easy to
use."

Virtual Placement
Jamaican First
JAM / USA: Phase 3 Productions
has chosen ChyronHego's Virtual
Placement to enhance live video
production of football matches for
the Red Stripe Premier League.
Phase 3 Productions CEO and
Creative Director Delano Forbes
said the company was "committed
to elevating the state of the art
in television production in the
Caribbean".
Virtual Placement will add striking
virtual graphics to each broadcast
and provide football fans with
a richer and more compelling
viewing experience.

SuperSport Africa
Snell Tech OBs
GBR: Two new HD OB trucks for
SuperSport Africa built by WTS will
use Snell technology.
The OBs are equipped with Snell
Sirius 830 multi-format routers, IQ
Modular infrastructure and Snell
control.
One OB truck and support vehicle
will be based in Nigeria (OB2), the
second in Zambia (OB6).
The OB vehicles are built on 40ft
rigid Mercedes chassis to cope with
rough terrain on location, with
double expanding sides, and each
boasting 14+4 cameras.

ESPN Fibre
Sports Link
USA: The Southeastern Conference
(SEC) Network, University of
Kentucky, recently underwent
an upgrade to ﬁbre optic
communications. This included
FiberPlex multiplexer technology
in order to originate more sports
content for the ESPN network.
ESPN transports all collegial
sporting coverage and content over
a ﬁbre backbone from SEC venues
to its broadcast centre in Charlotte.
ESPN and SEC Network expect to
carry more than 1,000 sporting
events annually to over 60 million
homes.

Lawo's Ace Service
At Australian Open
R

ental
provider
Gearhouse
Broadcast rolled in nine Lawo
mc²56 audio mixing consoles, 21 x
Lawo V__pro8 video processor units
and a Nova73 HD router for coverage of
the ﬁrst big international sports event
of 2015 - the Australian Open tennis
tournament.
The ﬁnal in the Rod Laver Arena saw
Novak Djokovic take his ﬁfth Australian
Open win.
"The build of a system that had
distribution ﬂexibility was key for
us during the design process and is
why we chose to network the system.
There were several surprises on the
courts during the early days of the

tournament and the technical
infrastructure really held its
own - as expected," says Nick
Bowey, Gearhouse's Senior
Audio Engineer.
Lawo staff went down under
in order to support Gearhouse
Broadcast to set up and
commission the systems.
Of the nine mc²56 consoles,
Lawo networked for Australian Open coverage
ﬁve were networked via a
Nova73 HD to provide sound feeds for further mc²56 provided the world feed
host broadcaster, Tennis Australia. for the rights holder.
Four of the mixers are deployed to
Gearhouse also supplied four mc²56
deliver sound from the Rod Laver mixing consoles to rights holders
Arena, Hisense Arena, Margaret Court ESPN, Tennis Channel, Channel 7 and
Arena, and Courts 2, 3, 6 and 8. A WOWOW.

Azteca Employs Viz Virtual Studio
T

V Azteca, one of the largest
television broadcasters and content
producers in Mexico, has expanded its
use of 3D graphics and virtual reality
(VR) set technology from Vizrt at its
main production facility in Mexico City.
Following its successful creation

and use of captivating Vizrt graphics
and VR technology on-air during TV
Azteca's 2014 World Cup coverage
this past summer, the international
multimedia
company
recently
installed a new ﬁve-camera VR
studio to produce advanced virtual
sets and augmented
reality effects for its
wide variety of sports
and
entertainment
programmes.
The studio is equipped
with the latest version
of Viz Virtual Studio,
Vizrt's virtual set control
software, three ﬁxed VR
Vizrt virtual reality set technology at TV Azteca
tripods (Shotoku), a free-

roam VR pedestal camera, and a VR
tracking adapter kit (Stype Grip) on a
Jimmy Jib crane.
Each camera feeds tracking data to
Viz Virtual Studio tracking server and
delivers tracking data to Viz Engines
to enable real-time rendering and
compositing system.
The studio is a fully virtual bluescreen cyc wall that's part of the
360-degree studio backdrop with
no real screens or video walls, that
utilises augmented reality elements.
TV Azteca has used Vizrt content
production tools since 2003 and
upgraded a smaller virtual studio late
last year while gearing up for the 2014
World Cup tournament.

PWS & ATK Audiotek Tackle Frequencies

P

rofessional Wireless Systems (PWS)
teamed up with ATK Audiotek
and Versacom for the nineteenth
consecutive year to deliver fumble
free RF management of the assigned
frequencies for several of the
entertainment portions surrounding
Super Bowl XLIX.
Working directly with the NFL Game
Day Frequency Coordinators (GDC) and
Karl Voss, the NFL's Lead Frequency
Coordinator, PWS offered its on-site
frequency management support not
only for the Super Bowl pre-game and
halftime entertainment segments, but
also for the referee mics and the big
game's Pro Bowl predecessor.
Preparations began back in mid-

October when James Stoffo, PWS
RF lead, and Jim Van Winkle, PWS
General Manager, worked closely with
ATK Audiotek's Paul Liszewski and
Versacom's Matt Campisi to conduct
site surveys.
Once initial plans were in place, PWS
submitted a list of frequency
requirements to the GDC,
who handled the frequency
coordination for the entire
event,
including
coaches'
intercoms,
referee
mics,
network broadcasters, media
and entertainment.
Karl Voss then allocated the
frequencies that PWS needed
to integrate the entertainment

needs with the other users at the Pro
Bowl and Super Bowl.
In total, the PWS team handled more
than 70 frequencies in a backdrop
of more than 1,000 to ensure that
spectrum users were not interfering
with one another.

On-site frequency survey
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OaEmyuh5W98 http://www.vizrt.com/products/viz_virtual_studio/ http://www.professionalwireless.com/about-pws
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