Telecast Fiber Systems Enables Advanced HD Workflows at Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden

Boston
s TD Banknorth Garden will have the country s first in-arena HD scoreboard, called the Garden HDX. It will use Telecast Fiber Systems fiber optics, which has also enabled NESN to improve the quality of video for viewers during Boston Bruins games from the arena.

The TD Banknorth Garden received a fiber package from Telecast to support the transport of 10 HD 1080i camera signals, which are sent from the truck bay to a broadcast hub located on the arena s level. Telecast Viper II POV transceivers are used to deliver HD video and control signals via singlemode fiber to the control room, which are used by the arena s in-house robotic Ikegami HD scoreboard camera. The Viper II systems are also used to deliver HD-SDI feeds from the in-house scoreboard program, and the robotic HD scoreboard camera feed, to the truck bay.

NESN utilizes Telecast s Viper II systems to control arena programming from

Watertown,
Mass. (the network s facility almost 20 miles away), with sources coming directly into the NESN control room. The Viper II is used to put three uncompressed HD feeds (a combination of analog, Ethernet and monitoring feeds) on redundant leased fibers, which makes NESN able to control programming from its distant headquarters.

NESN is able to preserve fresh, immaculate images for their coverage of Bruins hockey because the HD signals stay uncompressed from their capture through production, until they are compressed at the satellite uplink. The network is able to use less cross town fibers for its transmissions thanks to the Viper system s four and eight-channel optical multiplexing capacity. The fewer fibers make it possible for additional channels or signals in the future.