52 XTREME Desafio Doñana
to learn how the units (supplied by Ontario Solutions) were going to work in low signal areas through secondary roads, or in a national park with little communications infrastructure. “The EnGo transmitters performed impeccably, providing top quality, HD pictures, even in those tricky areas, and made a rapid recovery after going through areas with no cellular coverage at all,” says Guzmán. COVERING THE ACTION The Akedis team decided to cover the race with ten cameras: one each for the start, finish line and event transitions, two cameras equipped with Dejero’s EnGo (a Panasonic AJ-PX270 and a Sony PMW-EX3), two master cameras (one on each riverbank) and a drone. Two more cameras were reserved for recording interviews with the intention of integrating these into the broadcast feed during lulls in the action. A Wi-Fi network with a range of almost 2km was deployed to cover both the start and finish line and the transitions. The major interest points were linked through the master control centre (MCR). Dejero’s wireless links were supplemented with tech from Teracue and Teradeck. “Apart from this, we had to monitor competitors at the transitions and cover their arrival while we switched to a dierent mode of transport for the mobile cameras,” says Guzmán. Basic production facilities were set up on-site allowing the team to stay close to everything that was happening, such as briefings, race numbers being distributed and race oicials. The interruptible foldback (IFB) audio support also proved to be a bonus, giving the camera operators a permanent connection to the production team rather than being dependent on a short-range intercom. “We knew we were going to have communication problems with the camera operators with our options being either a mobile phone (with the risk of losing connection) or walkie-talkies,” he says. “We were aware of the sound quality problems associated with these devices and this is why we used Dejero EnGo for the IFB audio support.” The received signal was entered directly into the video router for distribution to all production systems. Fortunately, the complexity of the event was minimal, so they did not have to distribute signals. Apart from the programme feed, the signal went directly from the video router to the
mixer. The mixing itself was done on a Grass Valley Kayak 1ME. FROM NOWHERE TO EVERYWHERE Final coding for streaming was done with a vMix mixer. “That allowed us to add labelling as well as dierent layers at the same time as streaming,” says Guzmán. He adds that vMix is “a very intuitive software”, “cost eective” for small productions and is “more adaptable” to work with all types of media. Material was recorded in P2 and XDCAM. “We are used to post-producing
FINAL CODING FOR STREAMING WAS DONE WITH A VMIX
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