China’s Wuhan TV Outfits First HD Studio with Blackmagic Design Workflow

Beijing - March 27, 2017 - Blackmagic Design today announced that China’s Wuhan TV installed a Blackmagic Design workflow incorporating a number of Blackmagic Design products for its first full HD studio, including Blackmagic Studio Camera 4Ks, ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K, ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K, Teranex 2Ds, Universal Videohub 72, SmartScope Duo and various OpenGear Converters.

As a sub provincial level television network based in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, Wuhan TV has eight television channels and five radio channels and started HD and SD simulcast in 2012. With a twelve camera HD OB van delivered and the construction of its HD postproduction network completed in recent years, Wuhan TV built a 280 square meter HD studio, which is also its first full HD studio, at the end of 2016 to get ready for the new broadcasting challenges. This newly built studio will be used to produce Wuhan TV’s flagship live news program “Wuhan News” and many other programs.

”Most of the Blackmagic products we have installed for the new HD studio, such as studio cameras, switchers, recorders and monitors are actually 4K products, which are perfect for both the current HD and future higher resolution productions, making sure our investment is protected, but the costs of which are even lower than the HD products of other brands,” said Lu Hui, Engineer, Production Center, Wuhan TV.

To protect the signal paths, all sources from both inside and outside the studio, including five Blackmagic Studio Camera 4Ks, are connected to the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K and Universal Videohub 72, which not only serves as a video router handling all of the signal management throughout the studio, but also as a redundant unit for the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K switcher.

Any feed from outside the studio like those provided by the broadcasting department or a 4G feed sent in by a reporter on location, goes through a Teranex 2D for frame sync and audio de embedding, as well as standard conversions when needed. The resulting signal is sent to both the ATEM switcher and Universal Videohub via the two outputs on the Teranex 2D.

“We had to use many conversion boards with each for a specific type of conversion before. In contrast, Teranex 2D can do up to 1089 conversions and image enhancements in one box and also provides frame sync and audio de embedding,” said Lu. “The Teranex 2D’s built in LCD screen on the front panel is very helpful, with which we can monitor the incoming signal, eliminating the need for an external monitor.”

An ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K switcher is used to mix the program feed from the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K with feeds from character generators and graphics systems. For redundancy, one of the Universal Videohub 72’s ports is dedicated to outputting a backup feed, along with which the program feed from the ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K goes into a fail safe routing switch. A Blackmagic OpenGear Converter Audio to SDI embeds the audio feed from the audio mixer to the feed output by the fail safe switch. The resulting feed is then sent to the broadcasting system via optical fiber.

Lu remarked: “The ATEM switchers are so integrated with built in features such as tally, talkback and feedback that it’s very easy for us to use and maintain. Simply connect the Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K to the ATEM switcher with only one single two core optical fiber cable and then we are all set.”

A HyperDeck Studio is used to record the master and also serves as a source connected via a Teranex 2D to both the ATEM switcher and Universal Videohub 72.

On the technical director seat are an ATEM 2 M/E Broadacst Panel and an ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel for controlling the two said ATEM switchers respectively, as well as a Videohub Smart Control panel for the technical director to control the Universal Videohub 72 in the event of main video mixing equipment failure.

For technical waveform monitoring, a SmartScope Duo 4K is installed on the monitoring seat and a Videohub Smart Control is used by the operator to choose any source connected to the Universal Videohub 72. Unlike traditional camera control, five Blackmagic Studio Camera 4Ks are controlled by adjusting the settings such as black level, iris and color balance on the ATEM Software Control Panel running on a computer.

“The ATEM Software Control Panel not only is the CCU to control Blackmagic studio cameras, but also is the software app to set up the ATEM switchers, manage the media pool and can even be used as a backup for the hardware ATEM control panel,” said Lu. “Most of our Blackmagic products including the switchers, converters and video routers can all be connected to the same Ethernet switch and allow us to manage and control them on easy to use software applications with intuitive interfaces.”

Press Photography

Product photos of Blackmagic Studio Camera 4Ks, ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K, ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K, Teranex 2Ds, Universal Videohub 72, SmartScope Duo, OpenGear Converters and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.