Superior Stadium, Mobile and Classroom Productions at University of Toledo posted: 30/08/2018
Exceptional image quality, long-term reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out as cameras support athletic video productions and experiential learning
At the University of Toledo in Ohio, the Department of Communication provides students with practical, hands-on video production learning experiences while creating live in-venue programming and ESPN3 streaming broadcasts for the school's Athletics department. The department relies on HDTV cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America, Ltd. (Hitachi Kokusai) to provide high-quality image acquisition for its productions, most recently adding four Z-HD6000 studio and field cameras for the university's football stadium.
The University of Toledo is a student-centered, public metropolitan research university with over 23,000 students. The school's Toledo Rockets compete across 15 NCAA Division I sports in the Mid-American Conference.
The football stadium, known as the Glass Bowl, previously used very old standard-definition cameras from multiple manufacturers that required an unsustainable amount of maintenance. When it came time to replace them and upgrade to HD, the department's satisfaction with the existing HITACHI Z-HD5000 cameras on its mobile production truck led it to again turn to Hitachi Kokusai.
I like the HITACHI cameras because they're reliable, they make great images, and they're very competitively priced, said John Eidemiller, executive producer, ESPN3 and athletic video productions at the University of Toledo. In my experience, to buy a camera in the same class from another major manufacturer costs a lot more money.
Supplied by systems integrator Duncan Video, the Z-HD6000 cameras provide video for in-house productions that are shown on the stadium's 40-foot wide video board and TVs throughout the venue. Three of the cameras are stationed on tripods, while the fourth is operated handheld on the sidelines. All four are connected via fiber to CU-HD500 camera control units in the control room over cable runs of more than 1000 feet each, with MultiDyne SMPTE-HUT transceivers converting between SMPTE fiber and Tactical fiber for transport over the stadium's existing single-mode fiber infrastructure.
Between football seasons, the stadium's handheld Z-HD6000 is also used as a fifth camera on the department's mobile production truck, complementing four HITACHI Z-HD5000s permanently assigned to the vehicle. The truck's cameras are used in varying fixed-position and handheld combinations depending on the particular sport or event being covered, which include soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, swimming, and non-athletic activities such as concerts and commencements. Meanwhile, three earlier HITACHI SK-HD1000 cameras are used for classroom education in the department's instructional TV studio.
Eidemiller highlights the image quality produced by the HITACHI cameras as exceptional. I really like the way the HITACHI cameras look right out of the box, he explained. The color, saturation and contrast all look great. That superb quality really stands out when we produce ESPN3 broadcasts in our basketball arena, where cameras from a different manufacturer are used for the video board. Iso feeds from our HITACHI cameras are seen side-by-side in the control room with shots from the other vendor's cameras. It takes a lot of adjustments on the other cameras to get them to look nearly as good as the HITACHI units, and the other cameras still don't quite get there.
The durability of the HITACHI cameras has proven similarly impressive. The cameras are primarily used by students who have extremely varying levels of competency and experience, said Eidemiller. The HITACHI cameras handle abuse very well, and have withstood some pretty severe conditions in the field. Even the decade-old SK-HD1000s we use in our classroom studio are still going as good as the day we bought them.
Eidemiller also touts the valuable educational benefits that the cameras have enabled. The HITACHI cameras let us expose students to broadcast-quality equipment at a cost that we can afford as a university, he said. As a department, our focus is not only getting students successfully through the program, but getting them out with jobs. It's experiential learning that gets students to that point, and the HITACHI cameras help us do that. Our students are able to say they've shot eight different types of sports in live productions, with equipment that's comparable or better than what they will be using in their first jobs.
Last but not least, Eidemiller praises the customer service the university has received. There are a lot of good products out there, but Hitachi Kokusai has been awesome in terms of taking care of us and going above and beyond, he explained. We love the HITACHI cameras, we've had great experience with them over the years, and we love the support we get from the company.
About Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc.
Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a company that manufactures broadcasting systems, security and surveillance systems, wireless communications and information systems. Fiscal 2017 (ended March 31, 2018) sales totaled 171,791 million Yen.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
Superior Stadium, Mobile and Classroom Productions at University of Toledo posted: 30/08/2018 
