Category
Post & network production facilities
Submitted by Utah Scientific Design Team Diversified Systems: Mike Mundt, Jack Pakkala
New Century Productions: Alan Bourke, Davin Clem Technology at work Calrec Alpha Bluefin
audio console
Evertz 7000 series
converters
EVS
Production servers
XFile software
Thomson Grass Valley
Kalypso production
switcher
LDK 8000 digital
cameras
Utah Scientific
UTAH-400 routing
switcher
SC-4 control system
New Century Productions’ NCP X gives sports broadcasters what they want
New Century Productions (NCP) debuted it’s newest truck, the NCP X, in Anaheim, CA at a Los Angeles Angels baseball game in August 2007. The 53ft expanding trailer is fully HD and SD capable, offers clients a monitor wall that can display as many as 166 individual sources. The wall is composed entirely of flat-panel LCDs, which are used throughout the truck; the only CRT monitors on board are the match monitors used by the video operators.
Designed by Mundt, the truck was integrated at Diversified Systems in Santa Clara, CA, to meet the specifications of a national sports broadcaster’s baseball coverage. The truck has been at work on college and NFL football games, but it will be pressed into service for MLB coverage in spring 2008.
The production room in NCP X uses a drop-deck frame to increase the amount of vertical space for the production monitor wall, allowing for an additional row of monitors. As the floor steps down toward the front of the room, it opens up the space and makes the area feel larger than a conventional production room. The room is built around a Grass Valley HD Kalypso production switcher and can seat 12 people comfortably.
NCP selected a UTAH-400 routing switcher for its multiformat capability, size, reliability and compactness. In addition, the UTAH-400 offers the advanced control capabilities of Utah’s SC-4 control system. The routing system aboard NCP X is two linked router frames composed of a 288 x 704 HD video frame and a 288 x 288 AES audio frame. Seventy-two inputs and 104 outputs on the AES frame are equipped with analog audio converters.
Router control panel assignments vary from show to show. Utah’s new UCP-48 and UCP-MM/A control panels offer self-legending LCD displays for each button, eliminating potential confusion and increasing the number of sources available to an individual operator. And because all of the configuration set-ups associated with a particular even can be saved, most of the truck can be reconfigured for a particular client at the touch of a computer icon.
For recording and playback, NCP equipped NCP X with pullout trays so specific tape decks can be mounted to meet client preferences. Production servers from EVS handle most replays. Clients carry their own production elements, highlights and whole shows on the EVS XFile transportable disk drives that enable quick loading of clips and production elements for use right there or for highlights later.
NCP chose the Calrec Alpha digital mixing desk with Bluefin technology for maximum audio power in a small space. The Calrec audio console is equipped with 480 channel-processing paths packaged as 162 stereo and 156 mono channels, allowing up to 78 full 5.1 surround channels.
