NBC employs Goodyear Blimp for election night coverage


The Goodyear blimp is equipped with an HD capture system that includes JVC’s HD MPEG-2 encoder (pictured), an Ikegami HD box-style camera, and a Nucomm microwave system.

For its election-night coverage Nov. 2, NBC utilized the Goodyear Blimp to hover over its broadcast headquarters in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza.

The airship supplied overhead shots of the activities on the Plaza - including the famed ice-skating rink, which had a huge map of the U.S. embedded under it. The states on the ice-rink map lit up in red for President Bush and blue for Sen. John Kerry as election results came in.

The blimp was in town the night before over the Meadowlands for the Jets-Dolphins football game, which aired on ABC for its “Monday Night Football” telecast.

The blimp is equipped with an HD capture system that includes JVC’s DM-JV600U HD MPEG-2 encoder, an Ikegami HD box-style camera, and a Nucomm microwave system. A JVC DM-D4600UC MPEG-2 decoder was employed on the ground to decode the signals coming from the blimp. HD signals were downconverted for NBC’s NTSC broadcasts.

For more information, visit www.jvc.com/pro.

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