
NASHVILLE, Tenn.-The COVID-19 pandemic was a big blow to television production; Los Angeles, the center of the production world, suffered its lowest filming levels on record between April and June. Between keeping socially distant on set and needing to travel to different locations, when-or if-production can return to what it was before is currently unknown.
Some relief to these new production headaches has popped up in the music capital of the U.S. of all places, Nashville. There, NEP Live and Skyway Studios have partnered for the construction and housing of an LED Smart Stage.
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
William Shakespeare believed that the entire world was a stage, but the collaboration between NEP Live and Skyway Studios has turned that idea around to make this new stage a way to bring nearly any place in the world into a single location.
Officially opened to clients on June 8, the Smart Stage is housed in Skyway Studio's Nashville location, a 150,000-square-foot facility that in addition to its sound stages includes amenities like hair and makeup, green rooms and around the clock security. But the centerpiece is the new virtual, high-resolution LED stage.
The stage measures in at 38x20x13-feet with the walls having a resolution of 8272x1408 pixels, while the floor has a resolution of 1932x1008 pixels. There are a total of 13,594,432 pixels active on the set at a single time.
Playing back an image to effectively create the virtual 3D environment is done with a combination of 8K Unreal servers, a Disguise GX2C media server and VX4 media server and Stype Red Spy camera tracking system. Additional components include an NEP Plater Performer server for plate playback and frame accurate capture and logging, while screen mapping and control is done through Barco E2 running native resolution. The studio also features 10 GB of connectivity and multiple fiber optic links to common broadcast partners, including other NEP studios around the world.
We've heard from many of our clients that a stage of this size and this design doesn't exist anywhere else in the U.S., said Jason Newman, business executive, Creative Technologies, at NEP. Even in L.A., outside the volume for The Mandalorian' or something along those lines built for a tentpole project, there's not another stage that has the full surround with the capability that we've got here.
Even when compared to the virtual production set that The Mandalorian has made famous, Newman said that the only real difference is the layout and the size; the hardware driving the technology and the LED displays are essentially the same, just adapted into a somewhat smaller package.
In addition to the technical and physical collaboration between NEP and Skyway, a third-party has helped bring the actual environments to the stage. Lightborne Communications was tasked with creating the video content and 3D graphics.
Working alongside NEP and Skyway Studios has been an incredible opportunity to pair cutting-edge technology and a top-of-the-line studio facility with Lightborne's renowned content creation abilities, said Scott Durban, president of Lightborne. Using Unreal Engine to create content for this space draws on all of our capabilities and combines them into a new kind of alchemy that has seemingly endless conceptual, narrative and visual potential.
LIVE ON STAGESince the Smart Stage launched in June, it has been used for a number of different kinds of productions. With it being located in Nashville, one type has been for music performances serving as a potential replacement for delayed or cancelled tours that impact not only artists and their fans, but the production crews that help produce the shows. The stage can also be used to produce content or entire presentations for corporations, as well as high-end TV or film production.
The opportunities are endless, said Bill Lafontaine, chief marketing officer at Skyway Studios, who emphasized their excitement over what the partnership with NEP has brought to the table.
However, you don't need to be putting on a concert to utilize this virtual stage technology at Skyway. The studio and NEP also crafted a smaller stage that Skyway expects to be an option for local sports broadcasters (Nashville is home to the NHL's Predators, the MLS' Nashville FC and the NFL's Tennessee Titans). Regional broadcasters covering these teams could do studio shoots for pre-game, halftime and post-game coverage, Lafontaine believes.
While still in its early days, Skyway is excited about the prospects of what the Smart Stage has to offer. According to the studio's owner and CEO, Julie Stadler, they might install more Smart Stages if the current installation proves successful.
THE EVOLUTION OF PRODUCTIONAs mentioned earlier, nearly everything surrounding production is impacted by COVID-19 right now. Smart Stage contributes to the potential solution by eliminating the need for traveling to different locations or having an unsafe number of people in a single environment. This was particularly helpful as Tennessee's COVID-19 restrictions allowed for production to return sooner than in places like New York, or Los Angeles, where NEP has a similar virtual stage setup.
Still, timing played a key factor in all of this coming together.
One of the key things that people mostly don't realize is that, say COVID had hit us five or six years ago, the infrastructure and the bandwidth within the world did not exist at that time to be able to support what the technology can do today, said Andy Gerber, account and project manager for NEP Live. Even so, the pandemic did not cause a shift in the ways production operates, but rather an acceleration.
We were heading down this road with this technology, Gerber continued.
Part of the challenge in doing this now, he s
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
03/04/2026
Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer.
The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...
03/04/2026
Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...
03/04/2026
Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics.
Mol...
03/04/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...
03/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...
03/04/2026
Live Vertical Video automatically track the action on the court via AI technology and delivers a fully optimized, 9 16 live feed for viewers...
03/04/2026
As the Illini make their first trip to college basketball's biggest stage si...
03/04/2026
After last summer's Softball National Championship victory and last week'...
03/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
03/04/2026
Eight games across four tournaments will be played in three venues; accommodatio...
03/04/2026
The Ottawa Senators and Bell Media have announced a long-term rights extension for regional Ottawa Senators games on TSN and RDS. TSN Radio 1200 remains the exc...
03/04/2026
Massive production in Phoenix running out of Flagship Mobile unit, Features 50+ ...
03/04/2026
Iconic guitar pedals now available in plug-in form
Guitar effects experts Electro-Harmonix have teamed up with MixWave to turn a collection of their most pr...
03/04/2026
New multi-band AUv3 plug-in announced
Fred Anton Corvest (FAC) offer an extensive range of AUv3 plug-ins and iOS/iPadOS Apps, and their multiband effects pr...
03/04/2026
Just 84 units to be released in the US
Experimental synthesizer and sound-machine extraordinaires SOMA Laboratory have revealed an upcoming special-edition ...
03/04/2026
Emulates the input section of an Ampex 350
One of the latest arrivals to the Iconic Instruments range delivers a new tube preamp plug-in inspired by the cir...
03/04/2026
New York April 2, 2026 TelevisaUnivision, the world's leading Spanish-la...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/04/2026
CVP, one of Europe's leading suppliers of professional video and broadcast solutions, today announces the launch of its new German operation and the formati...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) today announces the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer, strengthening its leadership as the company conti...
03/04/2026
Net Insight introduces programmable Trust Boundaries that make live media interconnection predictable as traffic moves between facilities, networks and cloud en...
03/04/2026
Winning in the new media economy: Avid showcases AI-powered, connected intellige...
03/04/2026
NUGEN Audio CEO Dr. Paul Tapper to Lead Presentation About Dialog Intelligibilit...
03/04/2026
NAB Show 2026: PlayBox Neo Highlights Workflow, Security, and IP Advances
Brie Clayton April 2, 2026
0 Comments
PlayBox Neo will showcase the latest i...
03/04/2026
For Taku Hirano, Everything Is Connected From touring and composition to teaching and instrument design, the in-demand percussionist sees it all as one body o...
03/04/2026
Berklee Honors Humberto Ramirez with Master of Latin Music Award The alumnus and acclaimed trumpeter is honored for his influence as a performer, composer, an...
03/04/2026
Back to All News
Competition Heats Up with Intrigue and Spices: Netflix Unveils...
03/04/2026
Back to All News
Radioactive Emergency Ranks #1 On Netflix's Global Top 10 ...
02/04/2026
HBO and NFL Films have announced Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Seattle Sea...
02/04/2026
Haivision has announced the Makito ONE, a single-blade video encoding and decoding platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform combines dual-channel video encoding...
02/04/2026
Telestream has introduced UP.Lens, a cloud-based multiviewer and monitoring serv...
02/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (Booth C5220, April 19-22, Las Vegas Convention Center), marking the company's 60th anniver...
02/04/2026
Net Insight has introduced programmable Trust Boundaries, a feature integrated i...
02/04/2026
Bitmovin has announced support for SGAI (Server-Guided Ad Insertion) in its playback products, using HLS interstitials. SGAI combines elements of client-side an...
02/04/2026
Riedel Communications' SimplyLive RiMotion R12 replay system is supporting B...
02/04/2026
LTN, a managed IP video transport company, and Ateme, a video compression and de...
02/04/2026
Harmonic has announced that TDF, a broadcast infrastructure operator in France, has deployed Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor and ProStream X Video S...
02/04/2026
Eluvio and the United Rugby Championship (URC) have announced first-year results...
02/04/2026
The Kansas City Current and Scripps Sports have announced that ION will broadcas...