Veteran production companies Game Creek Video and NEP Supershooters will share the duties in covering the NBA Finals series for ABC Sports and ESPN. Also, as in years past, they’ll both be using a full complement of HD production equipment onboard their production trucks to manage the live 720p HD telecasts and bring the action home to viewers.
A new aspect this year will be a live 3-D broadcast of the series (the first ever), carried on the ESPN 3D channel. Due to logistics, some of the games (Games 1,2 6 and 7) will be handled by NEP Supershooters’s SS31 3D-capable truck while Games 3,4, and 5 will utilize SS32. Both have a similar equipment complement to handle the stereoscopic telecasts.
SS32 is 3-D twin mobile unit that features a spacious production room with 3-D viewing and a B-unit to support 14 convergence operators and a stereographer. With a Sony MVS-8000X switcher, Sony HD cameras on various 3-D camera rig options (provided by PACE), EVS XT2+ HD/3-D servers and a Calrec Alpha audio mixing console with Blue Fin networking technology.
Game Creek Video’s 53ft “Liberty” will be onsite for the NAB Finals, switching the dozens of Sony HDC-1500 HD cameras (with Canon lenses) and Chyron Duet graphics feeds with a Grass Valley Kayenne Video Production Center. The truck also carries a Pesa router, EVS six-channel XT[2] servers (with high-speed Sportnet Network), Fortel HD frame syncs, and RTS intercom communications.
NEP Supershooters, based in Pittsburgh, PA, will send its SS25 HD production truck to whichever city’s team that makes the finals. That truck is one of three NEP twin HD units, and features more than a dozen Grass Valley LDK 8000 HD cameras (with Canon HD lenses), a Grass Valley Kalypso HD switcher, Calrec Alpha digital audio console, Telex ADAM intercom system.
Both companies’ trucks (along with other companies) have also been instrumental in covering several of the first round and divisional round NBA playoff series — for ABC Sports, ESPN HD and TNT HD.
