 Equipped with an Abekas 6000 DTV video production server, the truck will capture live feeds during the game and rapidly edit them to create the bumpers used for transitioning in and out of commercials. |
During Sunday’s Super Bowl XXXVIII telecast on CBS, the Abekas Dveous/MX Digital Video Effects (DVE) system, and the Abekas 6000 DTV Video Production server from Accom was used extensively to generate graphics on board an NEP Supershooters truck on site at Reliant Stadium in Houston.
The Dveous/MX was used to create the main show's digital effects, in its full Dual Twin HD capacity. The unit is capable of creating high-quality video effects in either SD or HD formats, all from within the same unit.
Jeff Joslin, Chief Engineer at NEP Supershooters, said he has more than 20 dual-twin machines in the company’s production trucks.
All Mobile Video (AMV), another provider of remote television broadcast facilities, was also an integral part of the Super Bowl show with their Resolution mobile truck, which served as the “Tape Release” truck for the numerous replay sources required by the telecast.
AMV also supplied its Cinetour mobile truck which has been outfitted with an Abekas 6000 DTV Video Production Server. The Abekas 6000 was used to capture live feeds during the game and rapidly edit them for the creation of on-screen bumpers used for transitioning in and out of commercials.
Accom said that AMV took advantage of its latest enhanced Ethernet API protocol for interfacing the Abekas 6000 to the Editware Fastrack editing systems. This feature enables the operator to have all of the flexibility of a nonlinear edit system with none of the drawbacks.
Michael Shore, technical supervisor at AMV, said that if they had used a traditional nonlinear edit system, they would have had to digitize all of the material into the system, and then, if they did any effects, would have to wait for material to render. With the Abekas 6000 and the Editware Fastrack, the crew was recording six different sources live and using two channels as playout. This enabled AMV to rapidly turnaround game elements for in-game bumpers.
The Dveous/MX provides the same feature set and virtually the same control panel as its predecessor, the Dveous. With a simple setting change in the Dveous/MX, the operator is able to create real-time video effects in either SD (525 or 625) or HD (720 or 1080) at all known frame rates. Every Dveous/MX comes equipped with at least one channel of HD built right into every machine with the ability to upgrade to full dual twin capabilities in HD. Dveous/MX has an internal hard drive for more storage and faster save/recall of files.
The Abekas 6000 MultiFlex DTV Production Server is designed for on-air broadcast operations. It features DVCPRO and MPEG-2 compression (in one machine) with user-selectable bit rates of either 25Mb/s or 50Mb/s, and I-frame only editing capability. The server can be configured with 2, 4, 6, or 8 digital video I/O channels, and offers more than 130 hours of local RAID-5 disk storage. The 6000 also offers full VTR replacement editing capabilities; including split audio editing and shared storage across eight video channels. This provides editors instant access to material that is continuously recording.
For more information visit www.accom.com.
