Saudi TV recently took delivery of three OB vans including a 16 camera OB truck and two hybrid five-camera HD DSNG/OB vans. The two smaller vans are designed to cover small live events for the broadcaster while the 16-camera OB van will be used extensively for sports production including the coverage of the Saudi […]
Saudi OB van.
Saudi TV recently took delivery of three OB vans including a 16 camera OB truck and two hybrid five-camera HD DSNG/OB vans. The two smaller vans are designed to cover small live events for the broadcaster while the 16-camera OB van will be used extensively for sports production including the coverage of the Saudi football league matches, for which Saudi TV was granted the broadcast rights.
The OB project was contracted to Saudi-based systems integrator First Gulf Company, which undertook the integration in partnership with French company Preview GM. BroadcastPro Middle East brings you an exclusive report from Saudi Arabia
The 16-camera OB van has an expandable side that allows at least 16 production staff and engineering crew to work conveniently without encroaching into each others work spaces. Besides complying with standard engineering rules, the OB van includes special production and audio areas. An integrated editing room in the coach also accommodates two editing suites.
Key equipment in the vans include the Hitachi SK-HD1000 portable studio cameras as well as the SK-HD2000 large-body studio camera along with hybrid fiber connections.
Speaking about the choice of camera, Orlando Castro, broadcast systems manager at First Gulf Company says: Selecting an appropriate camera was key to meeting the clients requirements for a flexible design. The Hitachi SK-HD1000, with its dockable architecture, can easily morph from an OB camera system to an ENG camera or to a wireless camera system.
We have also chosen system components that can be used in different types of live production environments. Other criteria in selecting the systems were based more on the ability of the equipment to give us greater design flexibility.
The large OB van includes one wireless camera system.
We selected the Hitachi SK-HD1000 camera head with wireless adapter and Linksys HD camera mount wireless system to ensure complete control of the camera adjustment through the wireless interface.
Linksys also upgraded its wireless interface so we could use the normal Hitachi OCP for remotely adjusting the camera settings.
All three vans are capable of working in multiple formats including full HD, mixed HD and SD or full SD.
Walid AlMoukhtar, General Manager, First Gulf Company.
Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information has constantly been involved over the years in introducing progressive and innovative technology at its broadcast facilities, whether it is the introduction of High Definition, the MENOS network or Digital Terrestrial Television.
As a systems integrator based in the Kingdom, we have been privileged to be a part this progression because it has given us the opportunity to continuously innovate and stay ahead in our understanding and deployment of state-of-the-art technologies.
The 16-camera OB van does not include an uplink facility although the other two smaller vans have a redundant uplink system from Advent and supports any combination of DVB-S or DVB-S2 with MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 compression.
What makes these vans unique is the sophisticated HD equipment we have used in broadcast, collaboratively designed and integrated by FGC and Preview GM of France. More importantly, FGC has kept in mind system redundancy rather than component redundancy.
Although the main equipment has redundant components, what if the main component redundancy fails or if the redundant component is not the cause for the failure of the equipment? To avoid a single point of failure in the video and audio chain, we have anticipated various scenarios and put contingency measures in place within the design.
Castro cites the example of the intercom systems used in the van.
Besides the usual video and audio emergency changeover system, FGC has also enhanced the design of the intercom system by utilising the features of the Studer On-Air 3000 audio mixer talkback system. This will take over should the main intercom system break down, explains Castro.
The 16-camera OB van has also been fitted with two on-board Avid NLEs that can provide last minute edited clips during live events. The NLEs are fully integrated with EVS and Harris servers.
