Bexel Equipment Helps Drive PGA Championship Coverage

Bexel, a leading U.S. broadcast equipment rental company, recently provided a varied array of support and services in the form of equipment rentals, fiber-optic technical expertise and engineering support to Turner Sport’s coverage of the 88th PGA Championship from the Medinah (IL) Country Club.

According to Lee Estroff of Bexel Broadcast Services, Bexel’s flagship 53’ digital editing and multi-purpose mobile unit (BBS #1) was used by Turner Sports to house the production control room for PGA.com’s webcast in addition to the broadcaster’s use of Avid’s Symphony non-linear editing suite to build and compile production elements and features for both TNT’s four-day broadcast and PGA.com’s webcast.

Other equipment provided to both TNT and PGA.com included numerous telecast fiber optic systems, HD and SD ENG packages, Apple Mac G5 for webcast enhancements, Pinnacle FXDeko 3000 Hybrid HD/SD graphics systems and a six-channel EVS LSM XT for replays. Round-the-clock engineering support was also supplied by Bexel.

Tom Sahara, Senior Director of IT and Remote Operations for Turner Sports, recalls that Bexel equipment was particularly important for AOL’s par 3 coverage. “For the AOL par 3 coverage, we used a Mac G5 running Final Cut Pro for the webcast. That enabled instant message questions to be brought into the broadcast,” Sahara said. “People could IM the announcers a question and we would show those questions in a window. It worked really well and the viewers seemed to appreciate it.”

Available exclusively to AOL members, AOL’s par 3 coverage was in addition to the live golf TV coverage on TNT and PGA.com. It featured an in-depth look and analysis of the world’s greatest golfers as they pushed through Medinah’s challenging par 3 holes.

Further, Sahara said that several large LCDs and Plasma screens were provided by Bexel and used to display CNN’s pipeline technology at the media center and hospitality village. Pipeline technology allowed PGA.com viewers to select TNT golf TV coverage angles through a mosaic of four video streams, each featuring a different vantage point.

Other clients utilizing Bexel Broadcast and engineering services at the event included: CBS Sports, TWI International, NEP Supershooters, ESPN, National Mobile Television and the Golf Channel.