NEP aces UHD HDR support for Wimbledon with Grass Valley IP Infrastructure

NEP aces UHD HDR support for Wimbledon with Grass Valley IP Infrastructure posted: 15/08/2018

NEP UK supported the first UHD HDR live production of the 2018 Wimbledon Tennis Championship with IP infrastructure from Grass Valley, a Belden Brand. NEP's latest SMPTE ST 2110 trucks, Venus and Ceres, were deployed to support the newly formed host broadcaster, Wimbledon Broadcast Services (WBS).

WBS provided multi-camera coverage of all 18 courts for the first time, including a net-cam on both Center Court and No.1 Court, as well as other enhancements throughout the tournament. Venus and Ceres managed HD, HDR and UHD content, providing world feeds to 20 onsite broadcasters and supporting 21 of its own production galleries. The two trucks, linked via a portable IP flyaway system, formed the world's largest SMPTE ST 2110 Outside Broadcast (OB) installation and were able to handle over 118 camera signals, which would have normally involved miles of cabling. However, thanks to the Grass Valley IP infrastructure, this was vastly reduced.

Grass Valley IP infrastructure is built around its IQ UCP 25GbE Gateway cards. IQ UCP provides a modular, re-programmable, processing platform for two-way interfacing between the IP equipment and existing baseband technology to support clients using Serial Digital Interface (SDI) feeds. This provides added flexibility, enabling NEP to easily adapt the system for different events without the need to replace or re-wire racks of equipment. Each truck has around 70 Grass Valley IQ UCP cards and the flyaways have a total of 200.

The trucks also house Grass Valley's IPEDGE-SVR turnkey IP routing control system with Orbit control and monitoring software, Grass Valley Kayenne and Kahuna vision mixers along with IP Multiviewers. These seamlessly integrate with Arista COTS network switches, AXON Digital Design master control systems, Calrec audio mixing capability and comms facilities from TELEX Communications.

Rob Newton, CTO of NEP UK and Ireland explains, Providing our customers with a solution that can be seamlessly tailored to meet their specific requirements, regardless of how large or complex these may be, is critical. This lies in offering all the benefits of a fixed IP studio set-up, but in any location, and Grass Valley has delivered on this, facilitating the modular approach we wanted to take. As the Wimbledon 2018 project illustrates, we came together with Grass Valley to create a highly customizable live production capability that delivered high-quality action with unmatched images.

OB companies and broadcast service providers need flexibility to support increasingly complex and large live productions as they strive to deliver richer and better content to give viewers a more immersive experience, added Tim Banks, vice president of sales, EMEA, Grass Valley. NEP UK's approach to delivering an agile, flexible and highly configurable OB operation is the way of the future, and we are very proud that our IP solutions have enabled them to bring their vision to life.

The trucks were also deployed to cover the Royal Wedding on 19 May 2018, which attracted 1.9 billion viewers around the globe.

About Grass Valley

Grass Valley is focused on empowering customers to create, control and connect content wherever, however and whenever it is consumed. In this ever-changing media landscape, content remains the most important element. Many of our customers are faced with the need to create and support new workflows while continuing to operate their legacy workflows, simultaneously broadcasting through traditional channels, Over-The-Top platforms, and Video-On-Demand as well as to tablets, PCs, and mobile devices.

We provide the innovative tools and expertise to help customers improve the efficiency of their operations while telling better stories to attract and keep viewers. With Grass Valleys integrated solutions that enable flexibility, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, quality and scalability, broadcasters and content creators have what they need to sustain their businesses. Headquartered in Montreal, Grass Valley has been in the broadcast business for nearly 60 years and is part of St. Louis-based Belden Inc.

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