Advanced Creates Incredible Video System to Help TSN’s SportsCentre Stay in First Place
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Live TV studio broadcasts rely on a mix of precise timing, professional talent and increasingly complex technologies, such as HD video walls, to attract viewers and drive ratings. For TSN’s SportsCentre, Canada's leading sports highlights and recap show, the Sochi Olympics presented the perfect motivation to upgrade the set design with cutting-edge broadcast video displays.
According to Advanced’s Omar Prashad, who oversaw the design and installation of the impressive on-set video display system, “The team at SportsCentre wanted a unique deployment to reinforce their brand as Canada's leading sports highlights and recap show, and to extend their ratings lead in their highly competitive market segment. We spent several months with the team and the set designer testing different technologies on their set before determining that the APG Displays 60-Series PDP 60" broadcast plasma displays were the right solution to support their vision. The displays are a new hardware solution specifically built for the broadcast market to provide the ultimate in on-camera performance while virtually eliminating the traditional seam gaps of LED/LCD monitors.”
The installation professionals at Advanced had their work cut out for them, and they surpassed all expectations by creating three distinct presentation areas on the set. The main area features a massive video wall comprising eight of the 60” APG Displays PDPs in a 4x2 configuration, where the displays on either end are slightly angled toward the center. The two other presentation areas each blend three of the 60” displays directly into the set architecture, where they are precision mounted on an angle to create a unique and eye-catching design.
CTV is standardized on Evertz Video signal processing for the display of all content on the show, which means that Advanced worked with existing video processing equipment to complete the installation. “Our engineering and programming teams spent a significant amount of time working with their video production crew testing the performance of the existing Evertz processor,” Prashad said. “It was crucial for us in the design of the technology (and the specification of hardware) that we could be confident in the combined abilities of the processor and display hardware when married together.”
Designing a complex display system for an existing set meant that every millimeter made a difference. With no room for error, the installation team worked diligently and carefully to install the large, heavy displays that would bring the set designer’s dreams to life. This included working closely with the set designer to design and build the mounting infrastructure required to support the technology deployment.
“The background work that isn't seen by most people is the reason the final deployment looks as good as it does,” Prashad said. “Every single seam gap is tight to the factory specifications even though monitors are mounted at odd angles throughout the set! This is made all the more impressive when you consider the tight schedule we were on with the approaching Sochi Olympics. Our project management and technical deployment teams worked day and night over the Christmas holiday season to ensure that the aggressive timelines were adhered to, and we completed the project on time and on budget allowing them to launch the new set as planned.”
But for Advanced, the job isn’t over just because the installation is finished. After the set was completed, the company’s video wall technicians spent days with the client fine-tuning each display for color, brightness and uniformity to ensure optimal on-air performance. Because the displays are vital to the set and therefore must operate perfectly every single day, Advanced is supporting the installation over the lifespan of the technology and the set with regular on-site preventative servicing.
“Throughout the life of the system our dedicated on-site service department will support SportsCentre with regularly scheduled color balancing and calibration to ensure that the set looks as good in year four as it did on launch day,” Prashad added. “We’ve worked with the parent company, BellMedia / CTV, before on projects like the CTV Olympics 2012 Studio in London, Daily Planet and The Marilyn Dennis Show, so they know our professionalism, quality of work and reliability are second to none.”