Posted by
Paul Lara on Tue, May 15, 2012 @ 11:42 AM
Last summer, when New England Institute of Technology moved its main campus to East Greenwich, R.I., the Department of Video and Audio Production and Digital Recording Arts also made the move to HD production – and Broadcast Pix. According to Tom Strolla, professor and department chair, the move to a new campus was the right time to invest in new equipment.
Each of its two teaching studios includes a control room large enough to seat 15 students. Studio A is anchored by a Granite 5000 and Studio B is built around a Granite 1000. The Broadcast Pix Video Control Centers replaced aging Grass Valley switchers, Chyron CGs, and Grass Valley DVEs, plus the built-in Fluent-View allowed the school to retire its old CRT monitor walls and replace them with dual Panasonic 47-inch LCD screens. Granite also features Fluent™ Clip Store, which is paired with an Omneon server, which Strolla said was a significant upgrade over the department’s previous mini-DV tape roll-in system. Students produce a variety of programs, including news and interview shows, which are shown across campus on a digital signage network.
Strolla said the department did a lot of research prior to purchasing its Broadcast Pix systems. “We were really sold as soon as we saw what it could do and it fit our budget,” he added. “It was a pretty easy decision.”
Posted by
Paul Lara on Wed, May 09, 2012 @ 12:44 PM
Tualatin Valley Community TV (TVCTV) understands the need for reliability – it produces more than 400 PEG (public, educational, and government) programs each year for five cable channels serving 14 cities and Washington County, Ore. When TVCTV moved from a three-studio setup it shared with a magnet school to its own two-studio facility earlier this year, both control rooms were built around Broadcast Pix Mica Video Control Centers.
The main studio is dedicated to community programming, while a second studio is used for government programs, in-house productions, and contract work. (TVCTV has 14 freelancers and five in-house producers.) Thaddeus Girard, TVCTV production services manager, said the similar control rooms make cross-training easier and reduce crew costs.
The move to the new facility also included a move to a file-based workflow, which allows TVCTV to take advantage of Mica’s built-in Fluent Clip Store instead of relying on DVCPRO tape decks for roll-ins. TVCTV is also improving its on-air look by using the capabilities of its new production switcher. “Mica has just made our workflow much more sensible, creative, and easier,” Girard said.
What does your Public Access station need to improve its workflow?
Posted by
Paul Lara on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 @ 09:00 AM
The NFL regular season is still months away, but next week’s NFL Draft has whetted our appetite for football. This fall, will you be ready for live video production of football in your area? Joseph Maar, coordinating producer, FOX Sports North, said covering football can be as difficult to produce as baseball. “So many things can happen – and often the storyline is far away from the ball,” he explained.
Camera placement for football varies greatly depending on the level of play, stadium, and event status. High school football coverage, for example, is much different than Division 1 NCAA games. Even NFL games differ – you can expect many more cameras in primetime than during a typical Sunday afternoon contest.
According to Maar, most football coverage is built around three cameras positioned high across the field at the 20, 50, and 20 yard lines. Game coverage cascades to the camera closest to the line of scrimmage. There is also a high end zone camera, which can be used to cover the kicking game. At field level, cameras can be positioned on both sidelines, as well as one or both end zones.
How many cameras do you use to cover football, and where do you place them around the field? We'd love to hear from you!
Posted by
Paul Lara on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 @ 02:12 PM
March Madness is behind us and the NBA playoffs are only a few weeks away. While not as complicated as baseball, live video production of basketball is still not an easy assignment. Unlike the relatively static starting positions of baseball players at the pitch, basketball is ever-moving and fast-paced. So, where should you place your cameras to boost production value?
Joseph Maar, coordinating producer, FOX Sports North, said the most important camera placement for basketball starts with two cameras at center court. One camera follows the action on a wide-shot while the second camera handles the tight shots. The wide camera is the most important camera in your production, because it always provides coverage of the play, and is your go-to shot if the close-up is moving too much.
If you have additional cameras, a handheld camera under each basket and a “slash” camera in a lower-level corner will help you provide compelling coverage of the game. If you have a sixth camera, he recommends a center court handheld cam – and if you really want to get fancy, install a couple of robotic cameras above the backboards to give you angles for those wonderful shots that touch 'nothing but net'.
It's also helpful to have your scores and player stats linked directly using something like Fluent Rapid CG 2, which allows the director to merely bring on the page without any concern for updating first, as Rapid CG 2 instantly updates scores, times, penalties and anything showing on the scoreboard.
How many cameras do you use on a typical basketball shoot, and do you have a different setup?
Posted by
Paul Lara on Thu, Apr 05, 2012 @ 11:50 AM
It’s baseball season, and time to take that live mobile production unit out to the diamond and cover the action. Many schools and leagues are finding benefits to live video production, but if you only have a few cameras, how do you maximize your live coverage?
According to Joseph Maar, coordinating producer, FOX Sports North, there are five basic camera placements for baseball:
- high home
- center field
- low first
- low third
- a high camera at either first or third to “shag” the best play or player.
In the big leagues, broadcasts often include several additional cameras to cover different angles and storylines. It’s not unusual to see down the line, outfield low corners, tight center field, and straight-on center field coverage. Plus, many ballparks have robotic cameras that can be controlled from the switcher to provide even more coverage of game day. Maar said coverage can vary quite a bit depending on the network, ballpark, and producer/director preferences.
In fact, baseball might be the most difficult sport to produce, Maar added. “Baseball is different because the runner scores when the ball is not there,” he explained, “so it’s hard to show a live baseball play with only one camera. It’s the one sport where you cut cameras, sometimes a lot, when the ball is in play.”
Having a connection between scoreboard and on-screen titles takes a huge burden off the CG operator, and is frequently accomplished with something like Rapid CG 2.
Have a great season – and we’d love to hear your comments below on how you prioritize camera placement when you cover live baseball.
Posted by
Paul Lara on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 @ 07:30 AM
Last fall, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach,Calif., launched a marine biology videoconferencing pilot program. But the aquarium wanted to maintain the creativity and interactivity of its mostly K-12 classroom lessons. “We didn’t want to be a talking head sitting in front of the camera,” said Sarah Swain, Aquarium of the Pacific education technology and media coordinator. “Our goal was to bring our programming to students who can’t come to us.”
In the small studio/control room area, which was built in a converted storage closet, one instructor operates a Broadcast Pix Slate integrated production system and monitors the production through the built-in Fluent-View multi-viewer, while a second instructor conducts the class. The setup allows the instructors to switch between a webcam, document camera, video clips, and still images – as well as live video feeds from cameras installed in exhibits throughout the aquarium – to produce compelling HD videoconferences. The distance learning programs also rely heavily on chromakey to create unique live visuals.
The move to videoconferencing was a big adjustment from traditional classroom teaching – but learning to use the Broadcast Pix system was an even bigger challenge, because none of the instructors had any previous video production experience! Swain admitted there was a learning curve at first, but the instructors are now comfortable with their “directing” duties and have delivered more than 50 live presentations to classrooms across the country.
“It’s been a really neat team building experience,” Swain added. “We’ve all really enjoyed learning how to use this piece of equipment. I love the flexibility. It’s a really unique tool.”
Posted by
Paul Lara on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 @ 09:01 AM
With an expanding cable universe, as well as increasing audiences for Web-based video content, you can rest assured that more and more radio programs are adding a video component as they stream their drive-time shows to the Internet. That said, tight budgets mean that radio stations and other audio content providers simply can't pay for a video crew on top of the radio team.
Video Enahnced the Radio Star
That’s where VOX comes in. It works with any Broadcast Pix Granite, Mica, or Slate system to produce voice-activated video productions. VOX eliminates the need for an operator during live productions, as it detects which microphone is being used and uses sophisticated software to switch to an interesting camera position and add appropriate graphics.
While VOX can perform simple video-follow-audio camera switches, it can also do much more. VOX integrates with Broadcast Pix’s built-in Fluent Macros, which can be programmed to select camera presets, roll clips and animations, add or remove titles, and even execute picture-in-picture compositions for interviews. Multiple macros can be assigned to each microphone – and selection criteria can be established – so the production features real variety in shot selection and graphics. Your automated production will look as if a technical director was at the controls.
Q-music, a radio network in Belgium and Holland that has been using VOX since last summer, understands the importance of quality video productions to supplement radio programming. “It is easy to put a camera in a studio,” said Rudi Wynants, engineer at Q-music, “but it is not so easy to make this interesting to watch. Broadcast Pix VOX makes it more dynamic by not giving the audience the feeling that everything is automated by a computer. For normal operations, the system runs completely standalone.”
Posted by
Paul Lara on Wed, Mar 07, 2012 @ 07:06 AM
Riverside Government Television (GTV), the public, educational, and government (PEG) channel for the City of Riverside, Calif., finally got a production van last September – and they’ve been using it to cover everything from high school football to college basketball to community events. Before the van, GTV’s multi-camera shoots were very limited – because they would have to edit footage from all the cameras in post to create a finished program! Those days are over, because now they can produce compelling live and live-to-tape productions.
But it’s a van, not a 65-foot expando. “It’s a pretty tight space,” said Scott Brosious, senior communications technician. They’ve been able to pack three workstations into the vehicle, including a 1 M/E Broadcast Pix Granite 500. It’s our most compact traditional control panel, but it still can switch up to 11 HD/SD-SDI inputs, allow comprehensive monitoring of video and files, and provide complete control over Fluent workflow tools including the built-in clip store, which GTV uses for the intro and closing credits during game coverage. “There’s not much room for a bigger panel,” Brosious added. “For us, it works well. The quality is outstanding.”
Besides the compact footprint, GTV was sold on Fluent Rapid CG for its sports coverage. An option for Granite and Slate systems, Rapid CG streamlines the creation of data-intensive CG graphics for sports and other fast-moving productions. “Rapid CG works great. We’re using graphics more than we ever have before, because we couldn’t change them fast enough manually,” Brosious said. “We drop in logos from the schools, so there’s no need to recreate graphics from scratch. And we can change info on the fly.”
