In Broadcast - March 2015 - 36

36

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

InStudio

Broadcast Systems
Integration - Part II
InBroadcast Contributing Editor Andy Stout asked some of the leading
systems integrators about the market state, the impact of new technologies
and their key projects from the past year...
Sony's 4K Focus
Given the breadth of the business, it is
unsurprising that much of Sony's talk
about 2014 and 2015 centres around
4K; about pushing the boundaries with
it last year (War Horse, Linkin Park,
the World Cup to name but three high
proﬁle live events) and preparing for a
mass market with it this year.
"2015 holds endless possibilities,"
comments Norbert Paquet, Sony

Sony 4K at the 2014 World Cup

Gearhouse Broadcast
For Gearhouse Broadcast, 2014 was
a landmark year with any number of
marquee projects rolling through its
business, from Formula One and the
World Cup to the NATO Summit Wales
2014.
"We heavily invested in kit, including
upgrading our entire 115-strong EVS
ﬂeet in one of the biggest deals of its
kind, making Gearhouse Broadcast one
of the single largest users of the latest
in EVS equipment and workﬂows in the
world," comments Kevin Moorhouse,
COO, Gearhouse Broadcast. "We
agreed a multi-million pound deal
to buy the ﬁrst 50 of Hitachi's new
broadcast 4K ultra-HDTV camera
systems, and also increased our stock
of Lawo mc²56 audio desks, Sony MVS-

Gearhouse Broadcast's revamped
OBLite HD trailer

Professional Europe. "A recent study
predicted that around 48 million
screens will be 4K by 2018, so supply
of content and associated systems
integration will need to keep pace, but
we expect to see the wider adoption of
4K especially as developments such as
IP for 4K continue to gain momentum."
He reiterates the point when ﬁelding
a question about the changing role of
Systems Integrators over the course of
the past decade.
"As the industry has moved
forwards, simplicity, control, cost
reduction, and high quality solutions
- whether in a studio or an OB truck
- have taken precedence as budgets
continue to be tight. The convergence
of IT and broadcast solutions is a
key development for the industry
now, with transmission over IP set

to transform how broadcasters
operate."
Funding that change is, of course,
a key question. The ROI arguments
about IP-based production are
fairly watertight, but given the
wider context of continual change
and upgrades then SI's like Sony
are ﬁnding that every little really
does help and a move towards
running purchases through the
opex balance sheet is a powerful Sony's 4K double expander truck for Telegenic
incentive. What's more, this can take greater ﬂexibility and cost savings.
place in many different niches of the The software licensing agreements
business.
enable Sony customers to purchase
"Moving to operational expenditure temporary licenses for shooting at
makes managing budgets much 50P, 24-25Psf, 2x Slow motion and
simpler for production companies," RGB 4:4:4 & User Gamma. We have
says Paquet. "In 2014, Sony introduced seen a keen interest from customers
Pay Per Use software licenses for HDC to move to such a model as they look
system cameras which gives users to cost save whilst remaining ﬂexible."

7000 and MVS-3000 vision switchers,
Riedel Artist communications matrices,
Telex intercom systems and Canon
lenses."
A new version of its OBLite compact
HD OB trailer introduces a reﬁned
build and production workﬂow
redesigned using Ross Video's new
openTruck blueprint.
Structural updates included a lighter
chassis, built-in retractable steps,
a load-bearing roof with operator
safety harness and anti-slip surface,
waterproof mouse holes for cable
runs, stabilisation jacks and ﬂush door
locking mechanisms. All external units
are encased and a new internal cooling
system ﬁtted. Changes to the interior
layout also allowed for two six-channel
HD EVS XT server positions.
The company's OBPod is a
lightweight,
expandable
ﬂyaway
production system based on the
concept of the ﬂyaway pod that it has
being supplying to Sky Sports for the
past three F1 seasons.
"It has been designed with weight
in mind," says Moorhouse. "Every
component, ﬁxture and material
used within OBPod has been carefully

operational pod, an audio pod, an edit
pod, a production gallery and an MCR
to house the broadcast infrastructure.
Three of the pods have been
designed with expandable sides, while
post infrastructure integrated within
the units includes four EVS XT3 ingest,
playout and replay servers, as well as a
migration of the edit system to Adobe
Premier Pro CC, which is linked to a
500TB Dell SAS RAID storage system
running on a 10Gb ﬁbre network.
There is also an onsite EVS IPDirector
system integrated with Adobe Premier
Pro CC for ingest control, metadata
management, on the ﬂy editing and
playout scheduling.
Sky Sports will use OBPod as part of
its 2015 Formula 1 coverage, beginning
with the ﬁrst race of the season in
Melbourne, Australia on March 15.

The OBLite

selected to make it lighter, easier to
ship and quicker to rig and break down
on site.
"Working closely with coachbuilding
partner, A. Smith Great Bentley, and
using the standard air freight AMP
rectangular container footprint, we
replaced the previous honeycomb
casing with lighter aluminium.
"The new facility makes extensive
use of the ﬁbre infrastructure in place,
removing the need for traditional
heavy copper cables. A compact Grass
Valley NVISION 8500 Hybrid router
has been installed, which has HD and
SDI I/O on both copper and ﬁbre. It
also handles all the embedding and deembedding which reduces the amount
of external glue equipment required,
thereby further reducing the overall
weight."
The
unit
consists
of
ﬁve
interconnecting
pods:
an
EVS

Gearhouse's OBPod ﬂyaway solution
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/hub/home http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/hub/home http://www.gearhousebroadcast.com/uk/videos http://www.gearhousebroadcast.com/uk/videos
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