ST. PAUL, MINN.: The University of Arizona recently overhauled its live sports production capabilities to more closely align with the grandeur of its sports tradition, transitioning its aging analog control room to an all-digital, HD-capable environment.
Director of Video and Information Technology Matt George oversaw the project. He selected Tightrope Media Systems’ ZePlay slow-motion instant replay system. George wound up purchasing two units. Each provides eight channels of live replay (four in, four out), a built-in multiviewer for studying angles, and extensive tagging options to assist with storage, recall and lightning-fast highlight package creation.
“We don’t have a huge budget for production, so we utilize a lot of student and freelance labor,” George said. “I can assign a camera guy who has never run replay for a basketball game and get decent results. It’s not a simple system—it does everything we want it to do— but it’s simple to operate, and it’s very robust and powerful.”
Systems integration company AVR worked closely with George and his team on design initiatives for the control room and installed all systems. AVR also added new routers, switching and audio equipment for the new control room among other systems, while running fiber connections to new digital scoreboards in the venues.
