
Sound guy: NEP's Neville Hooper on innovating and developing audio wherever possible By Paul Mac
Monday, May 17, 2021 - 15:13
Print This Story
Neville Hooper is deputy head of sound at NEP, one of the biggest jobs in broadcast audio. He must ensure top quality delivery of primetime sports for a variety of high-profile network clients with equally high-profile broadcast rights.
Hooper is an active member of SVG Europe and can be spotted getting stuck in at most of our audio events. Moreover, right from his teenage years, Hooper has always been a sound guy.
Bands to broadcasting
Graduating from Solent University having made an early start in bands and touring after finishing school, Hooper says: I did have a choice. One of the bands I was in could have had a bit of success, but I knew it wouldn't have been for long. I also had a look at studying popular music and recording at university, but in the end I took a last minute opportunity to join a new broadcast course. It was one of those happy accidents; I've had a long and happy career.
There was a defining moment during his studies, when Hooper got a chance to ride along on a couple of jobs with a BBC OB unit out of Kendal Avenue. That confirmed it for me. I thought this is what I'd like to do'.
After his studies, Hooper got a job with Global in the UK, which was created from the OB properties of Yorkshire, Anglia, and Thames Television, and subsequently merged with Visions in 2000.
At its heart, great audio engineering is creative and it's nice to see young people coming through from a variety of different fields
He had several roles at Visions, but possibly the biggest thus far came when Visions won the Premier League contract with Sky in 2001, prompting the build of a new truck and the refurbishment of another. Hooper became the main guarantee engineer on that project.
Since then, he has specialised in football coverage, including the Premier League for Sky, and as host broadcaster on a number of Champions League finals.
He notes: I was the lead audio engineer on the Wembley Champions League finals in 2011 and 2013 for Sky and for ITV. I also did host broadcast at the 2006 world cup. We covered the Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund stadiums there.
High pressure situation
Being the host broadcaster for any event is a high-pressure situation, but for Hooper and for NEP, it is an opportunity to push standards further. We like to set the benchmark high, he says. We go to a lot of events where there are other host broadcasters, and we know what we like and what we don't. At Wembley in 2011 our aim was to make ours the best host broadcast we'd ever seen. So, for example, we had spoken idents on every audio source and picture idents on every video source; that was in the days with MADI and so on. Of course, now with things like the JoeCo devices, that's relatively straight forward. Hopefully, we set the standard for future events; we do try and go the extra mile to deliver the best service we can.
When we went from discreet audio routers to embedded routers, that was massive change and cut the amount of cable we needed by half. The next big step is losing the router completely
NEP has a set of carefully crafted core values that guide its services, which Hooper says is part of what makes the NEP worldwide offering so attractive. The same level of service can be expected wherever you go to any of around 100 offices and bases in 21 countries and counting. We see ourselves giving the top end offering, he says. To innovate and develop wherever possible, and practical.
These days, Hooper has less time on the road and delegates more events, collaborating with other senior engineers at NEP. There's myself, Stuart Cruice, and Rob Jackson, says Hooper. Stuart is delivering the Olympics for Discovery, so he will be off to Japan for nine weeks at the beginning of June. We're deploying four trucks to the Euros, and for that I've handed over responsibility to one of the guarantee engineers on that; he's one of our rising stars and has done a brilliant job.
Fostering new talent
Again, NEP puts effort into giving new talent responsibility and the opportunity to grow. According to Hooper, that is one of the things that keeps the craft alive in the face of so much technological upheaval.
At its heart, great audio engineering is creative and it's nice to see young people coming through from a variety of different fields. People who have grown up with the new generation of technologies are coming through and are extremely comfortable with it; but in the end, a microphone is still a microphone and it's still analogue. You cannot forget about first principles. If a mic's buzzing, you need to be able to deal with it.
Interestingly, of all the emerging technologies and recent advances, Hooper sees networking as possibly the most significant shift in recent times, and in particular the move to SMPTE 2110 and NEP's move to using the Dante audio networking protocol.
Everything is moving to a network-based environment. We had a dabble in Dante, and found it to be virtually bomb-proof, so we stuck with it and invested in more and more Dante kit. That paid dividends when it came to post lockdown football, for example. All the commentary on the Premier League for Sky has been done with Dante for a couple of seasons now, and it's worked very well.
It's interesting; I had a discussion recently about how we can move things forward, and I think there are limitations that even now we still accept that we don't have to live with anymore thanks to networking. A broadcast ends up being one big network with everything just sat on it and everyone taking and giving what they need to. That's the Nirvana. When we went from discreet audio routers to embedded rou
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Yospace will be at IBC from 11th - 14th September (booth 5.C78). For more inform...
03/09/2026
NEP Group has announced leadership changes at Creative Technology Group. Founder and CEO Graham Andrews will step away from day-to-day leadership at the end of ...
03/09/2026
The NFL and TikTok have announced a multi-year partnership renewal expanding the league's presence on the platform. NFL posts on TikTok increased more than ...
03/09/2026
Grass Valley has appointed Ronny Van Geel as Vice President, Cameras. Van Geel began his career in 1999 at Philips DVS and moved into product management in 2005...
03/09/2026
Telestream has announced Vantage Super Resolution, an AI-powered upscaling capability for the Vantage media workflow platform, developed in collaboration with N...
03/09/2026
Solid State Logic (SSL) will debut the TCA Tour at IBC2026 (Hall 8, Stand 8.B45), a portable production system built from System T components in a desktop frame...
03/09/2026
DPA Microphones has announced the 6388 CORE Headset Microphone, making its debut at IBC2026 (Hall 8, Stand D60). The supercardioid headset features a physicall...
03/09/2026
Qvest will present a multi-vendor Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) showcase at IBC2026 (Booth 10.C24), demonstrating how the EBU's DMF architecture can be imple...
03/09/2026
Imagine Communications will showcase the Magellan PanelFlex control surface and other control portfolio updates at IBC2026 (Stand 1.B73, RAI Amsterdam, Septembe...
03/09/2026
Bridge Technologies will announce at IBC2026 (Booth 1.A71) that its VB440 production probe is now available as a software-based solution, deployable on commerci...
03/09/2026
Audio-Technica has unveiled the BP350ST MS (mid-side) microphone in two versions: the camera-mount BP350ST-UL and the boundary or gooseneck-mountable BP350ST-UB...
03/09/2026
Telos Alliance will introduce updates to the J nger Audio flexAI audio processin...
03/09/2026
DUNKMAN, the professional dunk league founded by Shaquille O'Neal in partner...
03/09/2026
Orlando's WRDQ TV 27, WFTV Channel 9 previously named over-the-air broadcast...
03/09/2026
EverPass Media has announced a multi-year commercial distribution agreement with Netflix, expanding on an existing partnership that has delivered NFL Christmas ...
03/09/2026
Yahoo Sports and Apple TV have announced a partnership to deliver alternate broadcasts of select Friday Night Baseball and MLS games on the Yahoo Sports website...
03/09/2026
With another academic year underway, college athletic departments across the cou...
03/09/2026
Facility becomes permanent home of NFL Live on Sept. 9; centerpiece studio for c...
03/09/2026
Create musical synth bass sounds from scratch
Anthony Marinelli Music have recently announced the launch of Bass DNA, a new online course that teaches music...
03/09/2026
Most powerful Tonex hardware to date
IK Multimedia's latest release introduces their most advanced Tonex hardware unit to date, combining their AI Machi...
03/09/2026
Upmix & downmix software upgraded
Penteo Audio Plugins have announced that the latest version of their powerful upmix and downmix software is now available....
03/09/2026
With the start of the new apprenticeship year, young talent has once again begun their professional careers at SGL Carbon's sites in Germany. Recently, the ...
03/09/2026
With the industry increasingly embracing hybrid, software-defined production models, Calrec will preview a series of Argo and ImPulseV software enhancements at ...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
Recognizing the ever-increasing demands for media throughput in challenging environments like post-production, two leaders in network technology have worked tog...
03/09/2026
EVS, a leader in live video technology and production infrastructure solutions, and Matrox Video, a leader in software-defined media technology and IP-based vid...
03/09/2026
AJA Debuts OG-FiDO-4 openGear Four-Channel SDI/Fiber Conversion Cards
Brie Clayton September 3, 2026
0 Comments
New product family expands 12G-SDI and...
03/09/2026
Nice Touch launches V2 of its AI edit assistant for professional editors
Brie Clayton September 3, 2026
0 Comments
Built by two editors with twelve ye...
03/09/2026
Accedo, a global provider of video streaming software and services, and MediaKind, a world-leading video technology company and the number one independent provi...
03/09/2026
International research from Big Blue Marble puts a consumer churn number against a technical failure, and sets out what streaming providers must fix before 2030...
03/09/2026
High-performance points of presence power video streaming delivery to large audiences across Latin America with guaranteed quality of experience
Broadpeak , a ...
03/09/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, will unveil the next evolution of Dalia at IBC2026 (7.A43), its media-aware agent...
03/09/2026
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the world's largest independent IT and business consulting services firms, will showcase CGI OpenMedia Evolve and CGI d...
03/09/2026
LiveU is participating in the IBC Accelerator Incubator 2026: Smart Stories The New Knowledge Architecture for Content Production, an industry-wide initiative...
03/09/2026
Broadcast Solutions, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast and media industry, has taken another major step in its...
03/09/2026
Quortex today announced that it will showcase how it is accelerating innovation and the transition to IP at IBC 2026. The company will debut its newest intellig...
03/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/09/2026
The EZDRM approach to Revenue Security on streaming video can be visualized as a multi-dimensional set of solutions. A growing dimension of that approach is the...
03/09/2026
From field capture to management, control and production, Kiloview will demonstrate one connected Hybrid AV-over-IP workflow including a complete 4RU producti...