Cobham Solo H264 helps drones capture Dubai’s New Year fireworks display

Cobham’s Solo H264 HD transmitters were used by Airfilms Productions, a Dutch production house that specialises in aerial imaging services, to capture the New Year’s fireworks display centred on Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure in the world. Contracted by Elite Films in conjunction with Dubai Media Inc. (DMI) and end-client Emaar Properties, Airfilms used Cobham’s Solo HD H264 to send data from two highly customised broadcast drones to a pair of Cobham ProRX receive stations installed in DMI’s OB van and ground base station for mixing and recording.

The resulting close-range aerial shots, from two different angles of the Downtown Dubai New Year’s Eve Gala, captured a combination of fireworks, LED light and laser beam displays on Burj Khalifa, which clinched a Guinness World Records title for ‘World’s Largest LED-Illuminated Façade’.

With proven Cobham COFDM and H.264 encoding technology at its core, the Solo H264 HD transmitter provides excellent image quality retention over wireless links, which is vital for live event coverage.

Airfilms Productions Managing Director Bart Hartge said, “You only get one shot at a fireworks display. Couple that pressure with a world-record attempt and you have to be pretty confident in your equipment. We successfully used the drones for fireworks displays in the past, notably for Qatar’s National Day last year. We rehearsed in a similar, but more extensive fashion for the Dubai gala, without the fireworks of course. The quality and stability of the images are breath taking and can be readily seen online. It was a remarkable display that Cobham’s technology helped us to capture flawlessly.”