HUDSON, N.H.—Game Creek Video is a technical productions services company responsible for bringing some of the largest sporting and entertainment events to air through our state-of-the-art fleet of mobile production trucks and mobile units.
We recently built several new trucks for the fall sports and entertainment season—one of them, named Centennial, is a powerful SMPTE 2110 IP-based broadcast truck designed to handle formats from HD to 4K with full support for HDR signals to ensure superior contrast and color rendering.
Monitoring for Quality
Since quality is paramount for every production, it’s important to measure signals coming in from all cameras and ensure each source image matches the others (camera shading). It’s also important to guarantee that the high-quality output is maximizing the wide color gamut and contrast range that the HDR format provides.
Driven by customer demand, we installed six Telestream PRISM IP/SDI waveform monitors at multiple positions within Centennial. These include camera shading positions, engineering, and the replay area where, either directly or via KVM, the TD, tech manager, and replay operators have access.
We designed Centennial as a “Swiss Army knife” which can deliver whatever capability the client needs. Our goal is always to be as flexible and agile as possible. Centennial was also designed to expand and easily connect to other trucks which is something we pride ourselves on.
As formats and signals have evolved, waveform monitors have had to keep pace. IP-based signals also carry audio and additional metadata, so waveform monitors must also be able to monitor embedded audio signals such as Dolby as well as other ancillary metadata.
While operators need the latest features to monitor IP signals and make objective measurements of HDR, they also appreciate a traditional layout of waveform monitor and vectorscope. The Telestream team has been responsive to the marketplace by allowing two full displays from a single scope versus squeezing everything together in a single display, a unique feature our video shader positions rely on. Not having to buy two full units saves on cost and installation as well.
Although Centennial is an IP-based truck at its core, part of its flexible design is the ability to work in a mixed IP and SDI environment. The capability of PRISM waveform monitors to also work in both SDI and IP was an important feature that helps ensure this flexibility. Because the PRISM platform is app-based, our clients can customize and add tools based on their unique requirements.
PRISM MPD200
For Centennial, two PRISM MPD200 models are installed at camera shading positions and deliver two screens for both waveform and vectorcope displays from a single unit. Three PRISM MPX2-25 are deployed with two racked in engineering and one in replay and a single PRISM MPI2-25 is racked in engineering for 2110 and 3G/12G analysis.
Because PRISM employs a software-defined platform, it’s easy to keep these waveform monitors current with updates and any upgrades can easily be deployed in the field. This is a critical design component since there is no time to pull equipment and send it back to the factory for upgrades and modifications when the trucks are constantly on the road.
The timeline for building Centennial was short and with worldwide shortages of parts, we were concerned about delivering the truck to schedule. When one of our main clients made the initial request for the PRISM scopes, we worried that potential supply chain issues might impact our short runway. Thankfully, Telestream was able to pull out all the stops and get us the units we required in time. For that we were very grateful.
Jason Taubman spearheads Game Creek Video’s efforts in technology leadership and truck design while servicing the company’s vast profile of high-profile sports clients, including ABC, CBS, ESPN, FOX, HBO, NBC, MLB, NBA, the YES Network, NFL Network, and Amazon Prime Video. Since joining Game Creek in 1999, Taubman has led the design and build process for over 60 mobile unit projects, and also helped the company lead the industry to new workflows in HD, UHD, HDR, IP/2110, and remote control of mobile units by client production staff. He can be reached at jtaubman@gamecreekvideo.com or 603-882-5222.
For more information visit www.telestream.net.
