The Media Center used its new three JVC GY-HM790 ProHD cameras to cover the inauguration of West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin.

CHARLESTON, W.V.—When Joe Stevens and I co-founded The Media Center in 2005, we built our business around helping clients tell and distribute their stories. Today, the company has five full-time employees and an active group of freelancers. Roughly half of our work involves our satellite truck, but we also provide video production and computer animation services to a variety of clients.

We’re probably best known for our annual footage from Bridge Day in Fayetteville, W.V., where hundreds of people BASE jump from New River Gorge Bridge, one of the largest steel arch bridges in the world. That footage is picked up by news agencies around the world. Our uplink truck has also been used by national media for spot news coverage.

LIVE STREAMING GAINS GROUND
While the uplinking business remains robust, I’ve noted an increase in live video streaming during the past few years, and in an effort to tap this market, we’ve invested in a video production flypack that allows us to serve Webcasters with live multicamera streaming.

This new flypack is built around three JVC GY-HM790 ProHD cameras and CCUs, along with an integrated production system, audio mixer, and intercom system.

In January, only a few days after the new flypack was put together, it was put to the test by West Virginia Public Broadcasting, which contracted us to cover the inauguration ceremony of West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin. The following week, we used the system to record a program for the West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office on location at an elementary school. The show is usually recorded in a studio, but our new system enabled it to be produced very efficiently on location.

Later, we partnered with RSN Sports to cover the Big Atlantic Classic high school basketball tournament in Beckley, W.V. The tournament was streamed and we’ll be working with RSN to provide online coverage of upcoming high school wrestling and softball events.

The JVC camera’s biggest selling point for us was its ability to record native QuickTime files. We’re an Apple house, so no transcoding makes our workflow even more efficient.

Our JVC cameras are part of a continuing migration to file-based workflows. We’ve been using another camera system with solid-state recording for several years and while it’s performed well and the media price has dropped, it still doesn’t compare to JVC’s non-proprietary media system. Not only are the SDHC cards affordable— you get so much footage on those 32 GB cards—I can go to a big box store and buy a $15 card reader instead of having to invest in expensive, proprietary gear.

Over the past 30 years, I’ve worked with cameras from almost every major manufacturer and have to say that JVC GY-HM790 is one of the best. It’s a perfect fit for our flypack system, makes great pictures, is very easy to use, and the menu system is outstanding. Additionally, it’s really cost effective, especially for the quality you get.

Dan Shreve is the owner of The Media Center, and has been working in the film and video production industries since 1981. He may be contacted at dshreve@themediacenter.tv.

For additional information, contact JVC at 800-582-5825 or visit pro.jvc.com.