Burst Speeds Integration at Oregon’s Knight Arena

The University of Oregon will begin the 2010-11 basketball season in McArthur Court, the 79-year-old home of the Ducks. In January, however, the team will make a midseason move to Matthew Knight Arena, a brand-new (and still under construction), state-of-the-art facility. Working inside a construction zone on an accelerated timeline, Burst has been tasked with integrating the video production system in just 10 weeks, and the team is well on its way.

“The time schedule is very challenging,” says John Switzer, VP of system sales at Burst. “What started out as a 13-week project is now being done in 10 weeks. Our crew is up there now, and it’s always difficult working on a construction site. But the other trades — Hoffman Construction, WJHW, and AJP — have been extremely helpful and cooperative in helping things to come together.”

The $200 million arena, which will be completed in time for the bulk of Oregon’s Pac-10 Conference games in January 2011, will seat 12,541, and is on target for LEED Gold certification. The new scoreboard will be three stories tall and 36 ft. wide, weigh more than 60,000 lbs., and be powered from the HD control room that Burst is integrating.

Key components of the new control room are Hitachi cameras, a Ross production switcher, a Snell & Wilcox (PESA) routing switcher, Chyron character generation, a Miranda multiviewer, and TBC consoles.

“One of the more notable elements is the Grass Valley K2-Dyno slo-mo replay system,” Switzer says. “That hasn’t shown up in a lot of arenas, although we just put one in at Invesco Field at Mile High for the Denver Broncos.”

Once completed, Matthew Knight Arena will serve as the home of the Oregon Ducks basketball and volleyball teams and will also host numerous non-sporting events and concerts. Other parties involved in the arena project include Ellerbe Becket, TVA Architects, JMI Sports, and IMG College.

“All of the trades up there are working to get to the same goal, which is fulfilling this really tight timeframe,” Switzer says. “The goal is to have everything ready in mid December. Dec. 1 is our date for substantial completion, but the first game isn’t played in the arena until mid January.”

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