An Echolab Opera production switcher played a key role in the webcast of the 2007 Durango High School Fall Classic Tournament, one of the first live sports TV programs produced in the United States by female students from the Middle East.
Through the Middle East Broadcasters (MEB) Association initiative "Setting New Broadcasting Standards for the Arab World," young women from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon and the Kingdom of Bahrain joined the nonprofit charity Interschool Television (iTV) in producing a Web broadcast of the prestigious girls’ volleyball tournament, which took place Oct. 5-6 in Las Vegas. Thirty-two teams and many of the best players from around the country took part in the event.
Eight students from the UAE University, under the guidance of iTV executive director Dale Matthews, used the Opera production switcher handling five cameras to create content for the Web broadcast, available for online viewing live around the world. While these prosumer three-chip cameras provided by iTV normally need to be synced externally, the internal frame synchronization of the Opera switcher allowed the team simply to power up the unit, plug in all of its cameras and get right to work.
Echolab's Opera is an SD production switcher with a dual-format design, complemented by internal frame synchronizers and frame buffers that make it ideal for production systems that require handling of both analog and digital media. The production switcher can be installed into an analog system without additional conversion gear, and its modular architecture provides a cost-effective means of transitioning from analog to digital at the desired pace.
For more information, visit http://www.echolab.com/.
