Sky Racing has contracted with Grass Valley to design and build three new OB vans.
The mobile production vehicles have been designed to handle the rough terrain and hot weather conditions of the country's state of Queensland — the northeastern section of the continent — to help televise some of the more than 83,000 races that Sky Racing covers each year.
The deal, which includes system training and a multiyear SLA, is the largest OB truck design and systems integration order to date for Grass Valley and includes a full complement of tightly networked Grass Valley HD live production equipment and systems on each mobile unit.
Construction of the three OB vans, with an option for a fourth, is now under way in Melbourne. The order was placed in September 2011, and the three trucks are planned to hit the road in Queensland by the beginning of 2012.
Each will feature the latest Grass Valley HD live production technologies, including 19 LDK 4000 HD cameras (with Grass Valley's latest 3G Triax transmission system), Kayak HD digital production switchers, multiple K2 Dyno replay systems, a Concerto series video router and a series of products from the GeckoFlex family of signal processing modules. Yamaha digital audio consoles and an Apantac multiviewer system are also being installed.
Sky Racing, based in Frenchs Forrest a suburb of northern Sydney, previously has purchased a large complement of HD equipment for its live production studios in Sydney.
