VAN NUYS, CALIF. –Hu Nan TV, China’s second largest television network, recently completed an upgrade to its TV facility in Chang Sha City, Hu Nan Province, which includes three all-LED studio installations using Litepanels LED fixtures exclusively.
To outfit all three studios , Hu Nan installed a total of 68 Litepanels Sola 6 LED Fresnel fixtures, 79 Litepanels 1x1 panels, and 6 Litepanels Hilio high-output panels. Where the facilities previously drew 60 kW of power to light these studios, the Litepanels fixtures now draw just 12 kW for an 80 percent reduction in power draw. The savings will allow Hu Nan TV to recoup their initial investment in Litepanels in less than three years, and their continued savings after that will be positively reflected in their bottom line.
The Litepanels-lit Hu Nan TV Studios include a 1,300-square-foot classic newsroom newscast set and two green screen stages. Their primary green screen stage is 1,600 square feet and dedicated to virtual reality productions, while a 1,300-square-foot green-screen stage is primarily used for post-production matting, overflow production and backup for the news studio.
For the Litepanels conversion, the engineering staff chose to convert all three studios from their previous tungsten color balance to daylight color balance. Even though Litepanels has tungsten balanced LED options, they noted that daylight color balance provided better color rendering of the talent’s skin as well as the clothing and set design of the live news studio. In the case of their two virtual green screen studios, they found that daylight color balance gave them a greater ability for matting elements during live recording.
The studio upgrade, which also included new studio pedestals and teleprompters from Litepanels’ sister brands Vinten and Autoscript respectively, won the network a 2012 SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television) award for the most technically advanced studio China.
