LAS VEGAS—When it comes to helping a multicamera broadcast and live stream to millions of viewers, monitoring is key. At the “2022 Billboard Women in Music Awards,” Hollywood Motion Picture Experience (HMPE) was tapped by executive producers Tim Owens, owner of Liquid Arts Media, and Jenifer Hersch, vice president of productions at Redrock Entertainment, to provide a 4K and 12G workflow for the event.
HMPE’s production truck is built around Ultra HD and cinema glass, as well as a 12G workflow supported by Blackmagic Design gear. With the event broadcast in Ultra HD 59.94 full 12G, we knew our truck could support the unique requirements, which might have been one of the first of its kind for this type of event.
Truck Friendly
We supplied six URSA Broadcast G2 cameras and two URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 cameras, all with Blackmagic Camera Fiber Converters, to shoot the awards. Everything was sent via fiber back to our truck for camera switching and CCU control supported by an ATEM Constellation 8K switcher, ATEM Camera Control Panels and more. We even had a DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel for color grading.
To monitor those camera feeds, the truck houses numerous SmartScope Duo 4K monitors. The compact and rackmountable design is essential for the truck where space is at a premium, and the two 8-inch LCD screens also provide independent waveform monitoring, so we can choose between waveform, vectorscope, RGB parade, YUV parade, histogram and audio phase level displays.
Being able to toggle between two independent camera feeds, two independent scopes, or a mix of both gives us the best of both worlds. Obviously for broadcast, scopes are essential for monitoring the quality of the camera feeds, and the added flexibility to switch between scopes and camera feeds supports our workflow that much more.
Multiple Equipment, One Control
In addition to the rear engineering area, we use a SmartScope Duo 4K throughout the truck. When we have a smaller crew, we can move engineering up front—this is a simple process given the connectivity via a single Cat 6 cable from our network. All the Blackmagic Design equipment, from the ATEM switcher to the HyperDeck recorders to the SmartScope Duo 4K monitors, are networked together and can be controlled via one dedicated Mac Mini or with a laptop.
The truck also features two SmartView 4K monitors, which we used to monitor the switcher’s multivew, again essential to any multicamera broadcast workflow. Its 4K and 12G-SDI capabilities fit right in with the required workflow.
We shoot a variety of applications, including cinema, remote truck and studio, and no matter what is thrown our way, we know we can handle it as we’ve purposefully invested in flexible and future-proof tools.
