Rarely do a premier sports network and truck manufacturer get a year - never mind, two - to discuss, design, and build a mobile-production unit for a major television property. But when they do, the results can be breathtaking.
NEP's EN1 - complete with A, B, C, and D units - is the newest, and most technologically advanced, addition to the company's fleet. Originally slated for a 2014 roll out, the 1080p-capable EN1 will hit the road this Monday for the first game of ESPN's Monday Night Football doubleheader.
We actually pulled it out a year early, but we still had effectively two years with a really experienced team that we had partnered with since the beginning of what [is] now Monday Night Football, says NEP CTO George Hoover. Everybody really knew what they wanted to do, what they needed, and, going forward, it was easy to define the requirements early on and then spend that two years working on how to come up with innovative solutions.
A Plan Comes Together
With so much time to devote to designing and building the truck, NEP focused first on innovations for the truck's foundation: the trailer. From issues like metal and paint fatigue to larger environmental concerns (the truck is EPA Smartway certified), the company designed a new platform for EN1 that has since been adopted by an additional 10-15 units.
Next came the layout. As anyone who has walked through a mobile-production truck knows, space is at a premium. However, by spreading production elements throughout four units, NEP was able to create corridors that would allow ESPN to walk people through: affiliate partners, sponsors, ESPN employees not associated with remote production.
NEP's George Hoover stands in front of EN1 A unit, parked at ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, CT.
For me, there's a couple of obvious things [that will make producing MNF different from last season]. Number one is the comfort factor, says Chris Calcinari, VP of ESPN and ABC Sports remote productions. These trucks are huge. All four of these units operate as one truck, so you've got tons of space in there. Whether we're giving tours or just giving our staff room to breathe, I think that's a big part of this. The truck is over 3,300 sq. ft. of working space.
Another driving factor was flexibility. Although the core Monday Night Football crew has worked together since MNF was on Sunday night, other positions may shift from year to year; not to mention, EN1 is not exclusive to Monday Night Football. That led to the workstation concept: a graphics workstation can transition to a replay station without the space having to be rebuilt.
The things that most people won't notice are the fine details that NEP focused on, says Calcinari. Every individual workstation is set up as that, very individual. Everybody has their own light controls above them; air-conditioning is evenly distributed; everybody can program their own monitor in front of them up to 32 sources. Everything is so individual, and anyone working at a station can just decide what they want.
Four Units, One Show
EN1 comprises four 53-ft. double-expando units, each outfitted for a specific aspect of the Monday Night Football production. The A unit serves as the main production-control room, anchored by a Grass Valley Kayenne Elite switcher with 9M/E split among game, studio, and booth. In addition to the producer, director, and TD, a second TD will sit in the A unit and control feeds up to the booth. Graphics, predominantly from Vizrt, are housed in A alongside the MNF research team, and small portions of the unit are dedicated to switching and producing the ESPN Deportes broadcast and powering Jon Gruden's in-booth telestrator.
A Grass Valley Kayenne Elite switcher anchors the A unit.
If A unit is the brains of the operation, then B unit is the heart. Known as the engine room, it houses the gear, including an Evertz EQX router. It handles video input from the 30+ cameras deployed for each MNF broadcast (the crew uses Sony 2500s), as well the main audio mix (a Calrec Apollo mixes the main show). A generic workspace in B unit is dedicated to robo-cam operators for MNF. Mirroring a venue engine room concept, B unit houses the noisy equipment, which combined with a focus on acoustical design, makes EN1 surprisingly quiet.
We have 92 chairs in the mobile units, says Hoover, so there's 92 people operating and 92 people talking and 92 people working, which, if you had done hard walls, hard floors, hard ceiling, everybody would drive each other crazy. There was a lot of effort done on acoustics and lighting to make a much more pleasant work environment.
C unit is dedicated to replay (NEP went with EVS XT3 servers), with replay operators organized by functionality: super slow motion, normal speed, and highlight packages. The EVS servers are tied together with EVS IP Director.
Lastly, D unit is studio-focused, with a small control room and audio mix for pre- and post-game coverage, sound-effects mix for the game (a DiGiCo console does the studio show; a Calrec Artemis, effects), and craft edit bay for features and packages (the crew uses Apple Final Cut). D unit also houses the Sportvision First & 10 yellow-line team and the transmission hardware that connects EN1 to ESPN's broadcast center in Bristol, CT.
EN1 A, B, C, and D units
Says Hoover, The design is such that, when you reach the point of the game's over, you can disconnect and turn off A and C - production, graphics, and replay - [and] continue to do the postgame show and continue to feed and compile melts back to Bristol at the same time you're beginning to tear down.
The four units are connected entirely by fiber; the only copper connectivity is in the power cords. Audio connectivity and monitoring runs on MADI. A large Thinklogical router enables
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
Rarely do a premier sports network and truck manufacturer get a year - never mind, two - to discuss, design, and build a mobile-production unit for a major television property. But when they do, the results can be breathtaking.
