Italy’s Pro Show delivers versatile small broadcast vehicle to Globecast
The increasingly tight budgets of local television productions are now forcing service providers to invent increasingly agile, compact and economically-effective OB vehicles. The national broadcaster often has an internal department which can produce mobile vehicles or upgrade existing ones, but the medium and small broadcasters tend to call on external assistance.
The small size mobile production van is usually based on the work of three cameras but sometimes as many as six; and it is easy to foresee that such filming practices will become more and more ubiquitous, while simultaneously remembering that for large events remote production is now advancing.
Companies that create mobile vehicles for third parties are not particularly numerous in Italy, but among them Professional Show (Pro Show) has just released a vehicle on Volkswagen mechanics equipped for shooting with up to 6 cameras (the wiring is for six). Some of the primary characteristics that a vehicle of this type must possess are flexibility and reliability
Everything in its right place
Given the increasingly limited space on board, everything has to be in the right place to maximise workflows and minimise related stresses. Here, for example, they can work simultaneously with up to eight people, and Globecast – given its specialisation in live satellite links – wanted all the functions for shooting, editing and transmission to be integrated into a single vehicle.
Devised to be self-sufficient and optimised to handle a wide variety of broadcast market demands, the versatile vehicle is equipped with Sony HSC-100 cameras featuring 2/3” shooting sensors.
The company Tomassini Style took care of the bodywork arrangements, including installations of double-conditioning and electrics. The conditioning in these modes is crucial and in this case two parallel systems have been provided: one for the comfort of personnel, and one for the heat generated by the production apparatuses.
Fabio Veggiato, head of sales EMEA/Eastern Europe Key Customer for Pro Show, remarks: “Another point that a modern mobile vehicle has to deliver is the possibility of being reconfigured according to different needs, in case of adoption of new technologies. And here we are right in this case where the precise arrangement of the on-board equipment and even personal presence with dual functions (eg. those working on audio also controls the satellite uplink) are essential. The possibility of future upgrades to 4K is also another advantage to be considered. The work areas are [in sections], ie. the audio production area is separated and isolated from the video zone.”
Specific equipment
The vehicle includes a notably high-end technical specification, featuring a For-A switcher and multipurpose signal processor, BLT slow-motion server, Yamaha QL5 audio mixer, RTS Intercom technology with new KP5032 panel, and a Sony XDCAM PDW-HD1500 recorder. Reporters make use of the Dante networking-enabled INFERNO commentary system from Glensound, while the up-link encoder is the AVP2000 from Ericsson and the broadcast satellite modulator is Newtec’s AZ110.