Broadcast Solutions delivers 31 camera OB van to Al Kass Sports in Qatar
Last month Broadcast Solutions delivered a 31-camera OB van plus supporting truck to sports channel Al Kass in Qatar. Following an international tender, the truck was designed, built and integrated at Broadcast Solutions’ headquarters in Germany. The live production vehicle, named OB-10, is the biggest in the Middle East and will serve in major live events for the Al Kass sports channel as well as for further TV stations when Al Kass acts as broadcast service provider.
For Broadcast Solutions the Al Kass project marked a further highlight in building live production trucks. The company proved to have all the knowledge and staff to design and build a truck with 31 cameras for 29 crew members with special coachbuilding, tailor-made interiors and technological solutions in time and to budget.
Samer Younes, technical advisor at Al Kass, said: “This project is the first cooperation between Al Kass and Broadcast Solutions. We were looking for companies that reach our demands for high-quality and specialised OB vans and who work as a full-service provider – we found this here at Broadcast Solutions. The company has a more advanced approach to resources and the number of cameras to include directly in the OB. Broadcast Solutions helped us to reach our design goals for this OB Van, which is the biggest one in the Middle East, and we are looking forward to many big productions with this OB van.”
Al Kass can draw on 31 cameras, nine EVS XT-3 servers (12 channels each), 68 monitors and 240 multiviewer screens for up to 29 operators. To provide enough space for all equipment and manpower Broadcast Solutions opted for a trailer design with a single expansion (1.6m) over the full length of the trailer. With a length of 16.5m (with tractor unit), 2.5m (expanded 4.1m) width, 4m height and a weight of 37t OB-10 works with maximum dimensions and optimided weight.
Because of the protruding expansion Broadcast Solutions focused especially on chassis stability. No additional stands are needed for the OB van to be in duty and manned. A further topic the customer addressed was quick setup time, which Broadcast Solutions solved – OB-10 is in operation within 20 minutes from driving status.
The German system integrator included an efficient and partly redundant cooling system with a maximum cooling capacity for equipment and operators of up to more than 50°C outside temperature. Besides electrically moving furniture, further specialties like modifying the video switcher control surface (Grass Valley Kayenne) were deployed to ensure streamlined and comfortable working conditions for the operators including carbon coated furniture.
The second part of the project was the related delivery of a supporting truck – the same size as OB-10, but without extension. This second vehicle is the home to all mobile equipment like cameras, lenses, tripods, cable reels etc. plus a maintenance room. Here, the cameras are ikegami plus Antelope high-speed. Grass Valley provided Kayenne switcher, NVISION routing and KVM switching. There are 68 Sony monitors, Lawo mc2 56 MKII with 48 faders and Riedel Artist comms system.