Grass Valley Gear to Populate BSkyB’s New Broadcast Facility
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BSkyB (Sky) has awarded Grass Valley the contract for the key live production tools for its new sustainable broadcast facility in West London. The contract includes 20 LDK 8000 Elite WorldCam multi-format HD cameras and five Kayenne Video Production Centers.
Sky’s Harlequin 1 development is a sustainable broadcast facility that will provide studios, technical support, and operational space for Broadcast Operations, Sky Sports, and Broadcast Services. Constructed on the campus of Sky’s headquarters in Osterley, the building provides Sky with the opportunity to upgrade its entire technical infrastructure while reducing its environmental footprint.
Kayenne Video Production Center
“One of our main goals for Harlequin 1 was to reduce our environmental footprint with efficient technologies that significantly reduce the overall power consumption of the technical facilities, while still delivering the best picture and sound quality possible to our viewers,” says Troy Smith, Director of Broadcast Services for BSkyB.
When fully completed, Harlequin 1 will contain multiple HD production studios for a range of programming including sports, light entertainment, music, and game shows. Supporting these studios will be four audio mastering suites fully equipped to provide flexible, 5.1-capable, multi-platform content production services, and 45 craft edit suites.
For content delivery, Harlequin 1 will serve as a centralized platform for the control and monitoring of program output—including encryption, compression, and playout— from an environmentally-friendly facility.
“The competition to supply key live production tools was extremely rigorous and we’re pleased to have been selected for not only what our products can do today, but in Sky’s faith in our ability to continue development with a practical product roadmap that meets their needs for the future,” says Jeff Rosica, SVP of Grass Valley.
The LDK 8000 Elite cameras and the Kayenne Video Production Centers selected by Sky are part of Grass Valley’s new range of HD live production tools, including cameras, vision mixers, servers, and routing switchers. Both products are highly flexible and ready for future technical requirements, including stereoscopic 3D productions and 3Gb/s 1080p.
