Gordon Wason, president of VegasHD, (see previous item), spoke this week with HD Notebook about the new HD production house’s plans for setting up shop in Las Vegas.
HD Notebook: Why have you chosen Las Vegas as your base of operations for HD production?
Wason: Las Vegas has an enormous media attraction on a national level, and yet there was a noticeable lack of production companies that deliver to network standards. The town is also one of the few major markets in the country that does not have a Digital Video Fiber POP. By taking advantage of both these opportunities, we created a business model that we feel is poised for success. We combined a New York-based sales and management team that has strong network relationships with a team of Las Vegas consultants that assisted us with entry into a market that is typically a very “who you know” city.
HD Notebook: What type of clients are you eyeing?
Wason: Primary clients will be national broadcast and cable networks, along with local broadcast O&Os across the country that require production partners to deliver field production in Las Vegas. A secondary market will be corporate clients. Vegas is home to more than 20,000 annual conventions, many of which have in-house broadcasting needs for production and fiber feeds.
HD Notebook: Give us some specifics on what equipment and options VegasHD will offer.
Wason: We’ve secured long-term agreements to build and operate broadcast production venues at various sites to offer broadcast producers what we feel are premium views of Las Vegas. Networks come to Las Vegas to see Vegas, not to work on a soundstage.
In terms of equipment, the HD Mobile Vehicle Producer unit was developed by Sony Electronics. Our HD MVP will be unveiled during [NAB]. By the way, this unit is smaller than standard production vehicles—it’s designed to fit inside the close confines of a casino freight elevator—it still packs a full HD production suite in a 24-foot vehicle. The MVP has up to six Sony HDC-1500L multiformat HD cameras and will accommodate interlace and progressive formats, including 1080p/60 and 720p/60.
Our switcher is a MVS-8000GSF 2 M/E production switcher with a dual-channel DME, three HDW-D1800 HDCAM decks, two HDW-M2000 HDCAM decks, two PDW-F70 XDCAM HD camcorders, Sony LCD monitors, 4-buss 24-channel audio mixer, 2-channel Chyron LEX2 with Clip Player, multiformat (HD, SD and analog) inputs and outputs, and a full HVAC with three, one-tone roof mounted units.
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