The University of Idaho’s in-house video production service is responsible for producing everything from football pre-game entertainment to the live broadcasting of the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. However, up until last year, the school was still using standard definition cameras.
“They were analog and 4:3 and some of the cameras were the same ones we were using in the early 90’s,” says David Tong, the manager and producer for the University of Idaho’s Video Production Services.
For smaller university events outside of the football stadium, the production team was able to use smaller field cameras to feed into a NewTek Tricaster switcher. This allowed them to at least be able to shoot video in widescreen and record in HD by running the video down HD component lines. However, this method of video capture still presented some issues.
“Using those cameras we didn’t have tally lights. You’re running on battery power and the cable connections to those cameras are not real secure,” says Tong.
To make matters worse, the older cameras had fallen into various states of disrepair. Staff often wasted time trying to switch out camera parts that were no longer working in order to keep the main cameras functional.
Renovations and New Equipment
The cameras are regularly used to provide game-day coverage at the ASUI-Kibbie Dome, the 16,000-seat covered stadium that is home to the Idaho Vandals football team. The university’s video production team is responsible for pre-game entertainment as well as video highlights that are played on a 20-foot x 10-foot Daktronics display in the dome.
When the Kibbie Dome was renovated last year, Tong saw his chance to push for new HD cameras and to upgrade his team’s broadcast technology via new cabling. The dome originally had 26-pin multicore cables installed, but those were ripped up during construction.
“Athletics, who was handling this, had funding to put the same cables back in and we asked that they consider putting something else in. It would be better future proofing if they put in fiber,” says Tong.
Athletics heeded the suggestion and replaced the original cables with fiber. As part of the Kibbie Dome renovations, the school also installed a new HD TV system located in the stadium’s suites, press box and club deck. To make better use of the new technology, Tong requested the purchase of HD cameras that would take the university’s broadcasting capabilities to the next level.
Tong had several requirements for the new cameras. Most obvious, they needed to shoot HD video and work with fiber. They also had to have camera control units that provided power to the camera, tally lights, return video and produce high-quality images.
“I had been keeping my eye on things for a couple of years, but in the year prior to June of 2011 we were seriously looking at other cameras. We were looking at NAB (a broadcasting trade show) and researching. A couple vendors came in and did demonstrations,” says Tong. So when it came time to purchase the new cameras Tong was ready.
Purchase and Installation
Cost became the deciding factor for the university and they eventually chose Hitachi Z-HD5000 cameras equipped with Fujinon XA20sX8.5 HD lenses. The cameras became part of a portable equipment fleet that is packed into four cases and used on the go. These cases are transported by van to university events for broadcasting. The rest of the fleet consists of a NewTek Tricaster 855, NewTek 3Play 820HD replay system, a Sony HVR1500A HDV/DVCAM VTR, six Hitachi CU-HD500 camera control units and six Hitachi RU-1000VR remote control units.
“We didn’t have the go ahead to actually make the purchase until the end of June of 2011 and our first event in the Kibbie Dome was August 16. We only had six or seven weeks to purchase and rebuild our system from scratch because there were very few components from our old system that we could repurpose,” says Tong.
Once the cameras came in Hitachi sent an engineer to train the production staff on how to use the cameras and how to set up the CCUs.
“It was a matter of putting things in and checking them out and making sure they work. There was some troubleshooting and some surprises because some of the things you read in the specs we may have interpreted differently than the manufacturer,” says Tong.
Although Tong and his team were under time constraints, the installation process was relatively smooth. This was due in large part to preparations the team made even before the new equipment arrived.
“In that year before we worked out our design for our system signal flows and had been researching the different pieces of equipment. I used a program called Google Sketch and actually built a 3D model of the systems so we could see where everything went,” says Tong.
By the time, equipment arrived; the team already had a pretty good idea of where the equipment would be placed and how the room would look.
It’s now been a little over a year with the new equipment and Tong and his staff are still in the process of mastering the new technology and trying to make sure everything works together seamlessly.
“I don’t think we’ve learned all the features of the new system as a whole as well as I’d like yet,” says Tong. “Overall we’re pleased with everything.”
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