In Broadcast - October 2014 - 48

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 36 - OCTOBER 2014

N E W S

InFORM

TV 2 'Summertime' Shines On
Idyllic Norwegian Setting
Norwia fibre technology has helped slash outside broadcast production costs while
maintaining the high quality of TV 2's key summer programming strand...
The Customer

48

TV 2, the largest commercial
television station in Norway is a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Egmont,
a leading Nordic media group.
TV 2 broadcasts television around
the clock to all Norwegians. TV 2
broadcasts sci-ﬁ to trekkies, news
to those who never sleep and
Norwegian soccer to everyone,
whether they are using a TV, PC or
mobile device.
The TV 2 Group transmits on
a main channel and a number of
niche channels. TV 2 News has
broadcast news 24 hours a day
since 2007. In the same year TV 2
launched its own sports channel, TV
2 Sport, and has since expanded the
Sport focus to three HD channels
solely broadcasting English Premier
League. These niche channels
complement TV 2 Zebra that
has broadcast entertainment to
younger Norwegians since 2005.
The ﬁlm channel, TV 2 Filmkanalen
broadcasts ﬁlms 24 hours a day.

The Situation
The TV 2 Sommertid (Summer time)
programme is a key part of the TV
2 summer schedule.
This live one-hour programme

The production set was situated on a
ﬂoating pier in Oslo harbour

runs four days a week for nine
weeks during the summer months.
Traditionally the TV 2 'Sommertid'
programme was shot on the roof of
the TV 2 facility house. For 2014, TV
2 decided it would be more dramatic
and exciting if the backdrop were
the bustling Oslo harbour, marine
docks and restaurant area of Oslo.
To facilitate this, the production
set is situated on a ﬂoating pier on
which local and international talent
are interviewed and interweaved
with live musical segments.
Normally this would necessitate
using an OB truck. However, OB
trucks are relatively expensive and
the ﬂoating-pier location meant that
the OB truck would have to be at
least 300 meters from the cameras,
adding a great deal of cabling
leading to higher complexity and
set-up and running costs.
TV 2 had already used Norwia's
miniHUB to simplify operations at
various live news-based events and
wanted to explore the possibility
of extending this cost saving
and complexity reduction to the
production of 'Sommertid'.

The Decision
As an important part of the summer
schedule it's critical that the quality
of 'Sommertid' is not affected
adversely by technical changes to
the way the programme is made.
TV 2 had to be conﬁdent that the
solution chosen would be technically
up to the challenge. It was critical
that video and audio quality would
be just as high as previous years.
More than that, the TV 2 technical
team also had to be sure that
the control of the cameras and
lighting would not be adversely

TV 2 opted for a 'Sommertid' backdrop of Oslo harbour

affected by the
distance between
the studio and
the OB location.
Additionally
there's a third
test that has to
be overcome -
and this is not
about technical
issues, but all
about the human interaction
between the teams. Put simply,
the 'communication test' is: can
all production staff communicate
efﬁciently so that the programme
can be made just as well when the
audio engineers, lighting controllers,
technical directors and vision
directors are kilometres rather than
meters away from the cameramen
and the talent on screen.
The TV 2 technical team looked
at IP-based systems, however they
believe that the solutions on the
market today are not yet mature
enough for the Sommertid project.
The technical team knew that any
but the most minimal latency would
produce control and communication
issues. It was therefore decided to
choose a solutions contributing
uncompressed video from the OB
location to the studio, because as
the TV 2 technical team commented,
"transporting uncompressed video
just kills the latency issue".
Another advantage was that TV 2
already had cameras that were coax
enabled, reducing the requirement
to purchase additional hardware
in the form of SMPTE Hybrid
Elimination Devices.
Additionally, for such an important
OB event, it was critical that TV 2
could be absolutely sure that the
solutions chosen were as reliable
as possible. Norwia solutions had
already demonstrated their reliability
to TV 2, which has had a handful
of Norwia miniHUBs at important
Norwegian locations. The Norwia
solutions have been powered-up
and ready for action, 365/24/7 for
over four years, during which time
TV 2 has enjoyed 100% up time from
the miniHUBs.
After trialling equipment from a
number of vendors, TV 2 decided
that deploying Norwia miniHUBs
fed by Sony HDC-1500 cameras
operating in coax mode with
uncompressed video could pass the
technical, control, human interaction
and reliability tests above.

TV 2's Norwia solution saw the
miniHUBs fed by Sony HDC-1500
cameras

The Solution
Key
equipment
in
the
deployment included:
* 4x Norwia miniHUBs - two at the
OB location and two at the studio;
* 5 x Sony HDC-1500 3G-SDI
enabled cameras operating in
coax mode on the pier;
* 1 x Sony P1 camera operating in
coax mode capable of operating
off the pier, with GigaWave RF
Transmitter for video and a Coriel
3G/4G mobile phone data modem
for camera control;
* 2 x Riedel intercom panels;
* 1 x DMX gateway for lighting
control;
* 64 audio lines in each direction
via MADI connection;
* UHF, IFB radio interface;
* Return video, PGM and preview
sources;
* 1 x Gigabit Ethernet circuit.

Sony HDC-1500 cameras
operating in coax mode provided
uncompressed video
CONTINUED ON PAGE 49

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