NEW YORK—Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has added a variety of JVC Professional Video ultra-wide-angle, streaming and pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras to assist its clients with their productions.
“Our account rep at JVC was very effective at communicating the value of the brand’s PTZ cameras and offered to come out to BMG’s Cloud Control Production Center™ in Las Vegas for a demonstration,” said BMG founder and CEO Todd Mason. “We all walked out convinced that JVC was our best option.”
Shortly after the visit, BMG purchased JVC KY-PZ510BU ultra-wide-angle, KY-PZ200BU streaming and KY-PZ100BU PTZ cameras, as well as RM-LP100U and RM-LP5G remote camera controllers. It has installed several of these cameras at the facilities of various clients and used the cameras and controllers in the production of live sporting events, JVC said.
BMG regularly positions JVC PTZ in the announcer booth at sporting events for use as commentator cameras throughout games televised by ESPN and CBS. The setup is equally well-suited to remote production workflows and those done in traditional production trucks on site deployed from BMG’s East and West Coast hubs, it said.
One particularly useful feature of the PTZ cameras is their ability to be remotely operated. “While we usually need to have six to 10 manned cameras covering the actual game itself, for the commentators we can use two or three PTZs with a remote operator, which is extremely helpful,” said Mason.
The advanced streaming capabilities of the cameras include Secure, Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol support, which translates into cost savings for BMG. “With all our other cameras, the feeds are coming through encoders back to BMG’s Cloud Control Center, and those encoders are very expensive,” he said. “Our shows keep getting bigger and bigger, which means increasingly more encoders and decoders are needed. Having SRT directly out of the PTZ camera is just another big way to cut costs. It essentially frees up channels and saves us from tying up primary encoders.”
The cameras and controllers are also playing an important role in client-owned studios, such as at the Schwab Network where JVC PTZs serve as an option for different news and entertainment productions, JVC said.
BMG has deployed a JVC camera on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for Schwab. It is used for bump shots coming in and out of shows on the NYSE floor. BMG relies on the SRT functionality for remote camera control and to feed video to the show’s control room in Chicago, it said.
The company typically has used two larger, traditional JVC RM-LP100Us controllers and has recently expanded to using the new JVC RM-LP5G compact joystick controller as well. “We first saw that controller at NAB and thought it was smart. We realized how cost-effective it was for us and now have it,” said Mason.
