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In a world of instant gratification,
Txtstation has taken text voting to a gratifying extreme. Throughout
the Arena Football League playoffs and Sunday’s ArenaBowl XXII in
New Orleans, fans can interact with the stadium’s video board from
their arena seats or home recliner. Txtstation’s software records
votes cast for the game’s MVP via cell phone, landline or Internet,
then tabulates the votes in real time as a fluctuating percentage graphic
both in the arena and on ABC’s television broadcast, so fans can see
the effect their vote has on the total.
| Full Story
The new home of the
(current) world-champion New York Giants and the New York Jets will
feature the largest, fully integrated HD scoreboard system in the world
thanks to a deal with Daktronics that could exceed $45 million and
would be the largest contract in Daktronics history. The parties expect
that contracts for the project would be completed in the third quarter
of calendar 2008 with the stadium slated to open in 2010. | Full Story
A
new venture in college sports television begins in 2008 as the
Southland Conference Television Network debuts with over 35 broadcasts
on television stations and cable systems in the league’s three-state
geographic region.
Broadcast license negotiations are ongoing and the conference expects to announce network affiliates prior to the start of football season.
| Full Story
Gravity Media Group (GMG) has closed its North American
“box rental” business, based out of Gearhouse Broadcast’s Burbank
offices, effectively taking the company out of the short-term single
item rental business. | Full Story
Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company has purchased an extensive
complement of Fujinon HTs18X4.2 BERM lenses with 2X extenders. More
than 100 lenses are being used to outfit Scripps 10 broadcast TV
stations, including six ABC-affiliated stations, three NBC affiliates
and one independent. The lenses were designed for use with JVC GY-HD250
cameras. | Full Story
Students from Asbury College in Wilmore, KY will have a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to assist international broadcasters in
the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the school will send 56 students to
Beijing where they will help edit, provide camera assistance, and help
with audio support. “We had 120 senior students apply for the roughly 50 positions,” says
Jim Owens, chairman of the department for communication arts. “Our goal
is to significantly impact their education and in return provide a
service to broadcasters who will be working there.” | Full Story
Turner
Broadcasting Systems has installed NVISION’s NV5100MC Multi-Channel
Master Control Switching Systems for its major television services, which
includes TNT HD, TBS HD, TBS east and west, Cartoon Network and
| Full Story | Full Story
The New
England School of Communications (NESCom) an affiliate of Husson University in
Bangor, Maine is giving its students a comprehensive education in the broad
spectrum of communications’ disciplines, with concentrations in audio
engineering, a/v technology, video production, journalism, radio, theater, web
media, and marketing. Its curriculum now includes a mobile television
production facility housed in a 32-foot truck that’s equipped with NVISION’s
Compact Routers and Synapse modular terminal gear. | Full Story
For the past two seasons,
the Southeastern Conference has been the king conference in football
and beginning in October, Mississippi State will become the king of the
SEC; at least when it comes to video boards. The MSU athletic
department is installing the conference’s largest high-definition video
board and building a complementary HD control room, set to go online
during the 2008 season. | Full Story
While BCS
conferences debate the pros and cons of centralized media contracts and
all of the restrictions that come with them, one mid-major conference
is centralizing its streaming rights to great success. For the 2007-08
school year, the Big South Conference, comprised of 10 colleges in
Virginia and the Carolinas, launched a subscription-based video player
on its conference website. The EDGE serves as the streaming hub for
live and on-demand content from all 10 member schools, aggregating
content produced at each institution and delivering it from a central
location, the conference website. | Full Story
Eurosport has consolidated its position as the leading sports
broadcaster across Europe, according to recent analysis. The EMS
European Media and Marketing 2008 Summer Survey shows the France-based
group topping all television genres, with the main Eurosport channel
taking the number one position for the 13th year running. | Full Story
It is never easy for college athletic departments to
navigate the complex restrictions television rights contracts impose
upon them, and when Internet rights are added into the mix, the horizon
gets even cloudier. Two years ago, the University of Minnesota began
live streaming athletic events through its JumpTV-run web site, but as
the growing Big Ten Network exercises more of its streaming rights,
Director of Internet Services John Romo must find new ways to serve up
content to his subscribers. Romo sat down with SVG-U's Carolyn Braff to explain some of
the challenges he faces in his third year of streaming events for
Minnesota. | Full Story
The Wall Street Journal reports a number of startup companies are
introducing set-top boxes or software in the coming weeks that will let
consumers see on TV their digital photos, videos and other content from
their personal computers or the Internet. While Internet-connected
set-top boxes have been available for years, the companies say these
latest products are sleeker, more affordable and easier to use. And
many of the newer technologies claim to work with far more digital
formats that existing devices. | Full Story
When a university’s highest revenue sport is off limits
to streaming operations, a healthy dose of creativity becomes a
requirement for success. At the University of Georgia, television
rights prohibit the athletic department from streaming the university’s
football games, so the school has found plenty of other content to
satisfy Bulldog fans. Producing multi-camera broadcasts of home games
for seven men’s and women’s Olympic sports, Georgia has built a broad
library of content for their GXtra subscription service. | Full Story
Genesis Networks recently
deployed seven Pro-Bel Cifer standards converters in order to
provide frame-rate conversion of the French Open.
Developed in conjunction with Digital Vision, Cifer is is
based on proprietary motion estimation techniques that facilitate
pixel-accurate estimations and hence conversion. | Full Story
Microwave Radio Communications (MRC)'s LINK HD Wireless Diversity camera systems were used
by CP Communications to provide live, high definition, non-stop
coverage of Major League Baseball's All Star Game for both ESPN and FOX
Sports. This technology was also used by Flying Pictures Aerial
Broadcast Services to deliver aerial coverage for DirecTV. | Full Story
Jonathan Freed has
joined Bexel Broadcast Services as an audio consultant and technical
advisor. Freed will work with Bexel ASG (Audio Specialties Group) to
enhance its audio presence and product offerings in the remote
broadcast market.
“We are
extremely excited to have Jonathan join us in a Technical Advisory
position”, says Craig Schiller, vice president/GM of Bexel Broadcast
Services. “His 30+ years of sound mixing experience including some of
the industry’s biggest remotes will be invaluable to us as we further
our audio efforts with our existing product lines as well as some new
ones." | Full Story
In an important development in the race to create a definitive way to
replace tangles of video cables, Sony, Samsung and other
consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting
to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals
wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home. The Associated Press reports that Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Sharp and Hitachi will develop an industry standard around technology from Amimon Ltd. of
Israel called WHDI, for Wireless Home Digital Interface. | Full Story
HBO has
created an innovative new hybrid post-production room built around the
Kahuna SD/HD multiformat production
switcher, which handles content in virtually any format and offers real-time
film-effects capabilities. HBO's "Hybrid C" is a hybrid real-time
editing room that combines linear HD editing with a nonlinear tapeless workflow
to enable fast editing and delivery of day-of-air programming in HD. | Full Story
CBS has provided more evidence to support the theory
that streaming full-length episodes of prime-time series is additive for broadcast networks and does little to threaten TV
viewing. According to a new report issued by CBS Interactive, Mediaweek reports, less than half
of the network’s online audience primarily views their
favorite shows online, and most say that the wide availability of
these shows across the Internet does not impact their TV viewing. | Full Story
Broadcasting & Cable reports that Capitol Broadcasting's WRAL Raleigh-Durham, N.C., has teamed up with CBC New Media Group
on the state’s first field test of mobile ditigal television this week. The two parties will use the
MPH system, which allows broadcasters to deliver DTV to mobile devices including cellular phones, laptops and personal media players. | Full Story
Cable operators are increasingly seeking to become destinations for online video, and the Wall Street Journal
reports that Comcast Corp. has taken a big step in that direction. Comcast,
an emerging player in Internet video, has cut a series of deals
to handle online video for three other major cable operators. The
Seattle-based subsidiary of Comcast, thePlatform,
has reached deals to deliver video to Web sites aimed at subscribers to
the high-speed Internet services of Time Warner Cable, Cablevision
Systems and Cox Communications. | Full Story
Calrec Audio will unveil a Flypack version of the Omega with
Bluefin console at IBC in September. Available on the Omega and Zeta consoles, the Flypack is designed for
use in places to which a mobile truck cannot get or is prohibitively
expensive to ship, providing high-end broadcast facilities in otherwise
impenetrable locations. | Full Story
Orad Hi-Tec Systems Limited will unveil the GBox 2U, its new entry level,
cost-effective video graphics rendering platform at IBC2008. The GBox
2U is a compact 2U rack-mountable box, which includes both the control
PC and the rendering platform in a single physical box. | Full Story
UK outside broadcast company O21 Television has won the contract to
provide facilities for Setanta Sports' coverage of Scottish Premier
League (SPL) football. Under the agreement 021 will cover 60 live games
a season for a minimum of two years. | Full Story
The Phoenix Coyotes and Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, AZ, recently upgraded their sound system with the help of L-Acoustics line arrays, subwoofers and amplifier-processors. “The great thing about this system is is is all rigged off the high steel and it is all on moving chain motors,” says Neil Rosenbaum, Jobing.com Arena’s production manager. “At the push of a button this whole system can disappear like it’s not even in the building.” | Full Story
Season
two of American Gladiators which returned to the air in mid-May on NBC, is
filmed at
the Los Angeles Sports Arena using Sennheiser equipment including MKH
8040 Series wired microphones, SKM 5200 wireless handheld mics and the
company's A 5000 CP circularly polarized antennas. | Full Story
The
The VDS Promotor system which is used for
automated promos and graphics now supports the Harris graphics
and branding systems including IconStation, ChannelONE and Inscriber G7. | Full Story
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