Grass Valley technology supports World Cup
Jun 10, 2010 6:59 PM, By Michael Grotticelli
Grass Valley will provide nearly 300 LDK 8000 Elite WorldCam HD cameras, capable of shooting in all of the HD format, to capture the action of the 2010 World Cup tournament in South Africa.
As it did in 2006, Grass Valley will serve as the lead equipment supplier to the host broadcaster for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, providing approximately 300 HD broadcast cameras, 43 production switchers, three large matrix routers and 1200 signal processing modules.
Grass Valley is working with Host Broadcast Services (HBS) to supply and deliver the identical technical infrastructure for the tournament's host production, including 10 technical operations centers and 10 mobile production trucks that will be tightly integrated with the on-site operations centers.
Gearhouse Broadcast will build the operations centers, while a number of system installation companies will handle the building of the production trucks. This includes Alfacam for Durban, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg/Ellispark and Pretoria venues; Studio Berlin for the Johannesburg/Soccer City and Rustenburg venues; CTV (part of the Euro Media Group) for Polokwane and Nelspruit; VCF France (also part of Euro Media) for the Cape Town stadiums; and Spain's Mediapro for Bloemfontein.
Grass Valley said the biggest challenge would be managing the complex production requirements that include multisource productions and the integration of feeds from hundreds of specialty cameras.
Each mobile production truck will feature 19 LDK 8000 Elite WorldCam HD cameras, including two wireless HD camera setups and one dedicated to the mobile TV feed, and six LDK 8300 Super SloMo cameras (60 in total). Also included will be two LDK 8000 Elite WorldCams for sideline interviews and special coverage for individual broadcasters, and two LDK 8000 WorldCams feeding the large-screen stadium displays.
The production switchers for the trucks include a Grass Valley Kayenne XL HD (4 M/E) switcher. Other venues will use KayakHD (1 and 2M/E) switchers for other types of production. There will be a total of 10 Kayenne HD and 30 Kayak HD switchers across all of the venues.
At the International Broadcast Center in Johannesburg, there are two 1M/E Kayak HDs; a 4M/E Kayak SD; three routers, a 256 Trinix, 512 Trinix and 256 Trinix NXT; 55 Kameleon frames; 56 Gecko Flex frames; 23 Gecko frames and more than 700 HD/SD distribution amplifiers.
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