LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., February 3, 2012 – When the New York Giants and New England Patriots take the field for Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Sunday, February 5, the eyes of over 100 million people around the world will be upon them. Meeting the challenge of this momentous national and international telecast is production facilities provider NEP Broadcasting, which has again chosen Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, to provide HDTV lenses for coverage of Super Bowl game play. NEP will deploy three mobile production vehicles and more than 100 HDTV cameras, each of which will have a Canon HD lens mounted on it.
“The Super Bowl is the biggest, most widely viewed sporting event in the country,” said George Hoover, senior vice president of engineering at NEP Broadcasting. “Such an event demands total reliability in the equipment we use, which is why we have again chosen Canon HDTV lenses for Super Bowl game coverage. We have used Canon lenses for previous Super Bowls and for this year’s entire football season because of their image quality and reliability, and because of Canon’s excellent service and support.”
“Canon is honored to once again be selected as the choice of HD lenses for coverage of the Super Bowl, the most widely viewed U.S. sporting event,” commented Larry Thorpe, senior fellow, Professional Engineering & Solutions Division, Canon U.S.A. “Canon has been at the forefront of advancing optical technology for HDTV content creation for decades. As a result, Canon can provide broadcasters and other creative program producers with a wide range of highly sophisticated operational advantages in its HDTV lenses.”
Among the many Canon HDTV lenses that NEP Broadcasting will utilize at Super Bowl XLVI are XJ100x9.3B and XJ86x9.3B long-zoom lenses designed for “hard” HDTV field cameras. Both feature Canon’s unique second-generation built-in Shift-IS technology, which ensures steady shots at telephoto distances or wherever the zoom range is set. “When you’re zoomed in really tight with the long-zoom lenses and you’re moving down the sideline in the cart, the capabilities of Canon’s Image Stabilization are of great importance,” Hoover noted.
Hoover has also cited the optical performance of using these lenses during games earlier in the season. “When the sun goes down during a game, you need good sensitivity, good light-handling capability, and low ramping so that when you’re at the end of that 100x or 86x lens’s zoom range, that light level isn’t falling off. These Canon HDTV lenses provide that.”
Canon HDTV lenses mounted on a variety of portable EFP-style cameras, Steadicams, and jib arms will include: the HJ14ex4.3B, the world’s widest-angle lens in the professional realm of 2/3-inch lenses; the HJ22ex7.6B, Canon’s longest-focal-length portable HD production lens; and the HJ40x14B, a highly portable telephoto EFP lens that incorporates Canon’s Shift-IS system for imaging rock-steady HD video under even the most adverse field conditions.
Along with its high-level technical expertise NEP Broadcasting will employ its state-of-the-art ND-3 and ND-4 HDTV mobile production facilities for game coverage, and the NEP Denali – a premiere mobile HDTV truck designed for entertainment events and programming – for halftime. All three vehicles and additional support trucks are outfitted with the mission-critical HDTV broadcast equipment necessary for capturing every second of Super Bowl XLVI action for millions of viewers. With no second chances to capture crucial moments of play, Canon HDTV lenses are engineered for dependability and are backed-up by Canon service and support.
“Canon will be on-site in Indy leading up to the Super Bowl, fine-tuning to make sure every lens at every camera position is operating at 110 percent of every operator’s requirements,” Hoover said. “When you’re doing remote TV, it is a fact of life that a lens can get damaged. Fortunately, on-site support from Canon is backing us up to deal with such things.”
“The reliability of Canon HDTV lenses over time – regardless of weather and environmental conditions – is great,” Hoover added. “When you’re shooting professional football you can be covered with snow and rain one day, and then heat and humidity the next. With Canon, you know that your HDTV lenses will hold up not only today, but tomorrow as well.”
About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. With more than $45 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), ranks fourth overall in patent holdings in the U.S. in 2010† and is one of Fortune Magazine's World’s Most Admired Companies in 2011. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.
About NEP Broadcasting
NEP is a leading provider of services and equipment for remote television production, studio production, video display and live-to-web event production. With more than 700 employees worldwide and three decades experience, NEP leads the industry in engineering expertise and technology innovation. The company is majority-owned by American Securities, a private equity firm headquartered in New York, and NEP management. For more information, please visit our website at www.nepinc.com .
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†Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.
All referenced product names, and other marks, are trademarks of their respective owners.
