ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—The live broadcast technology services company Mobile TV Group (MTVG) has announced significant technology and equipment upgrades for 15 Flex Series mobile units. 

The improvements include hardware and software upgrades to make them 1080p, a move that will significantly improve in-person and Cloud Control hybrid cloud productions and enhance the viewing experience, the company said.  

MTVG reported that the opportunity to provide broadcast technology for Major League Soccer (MLS) games during the 2023 season and beyond was one of the catalysts for this investment. The upgrades will benefit multiple teams and leagues, as MTVG produces over half of all MLB, NHL, and NBA games every season. 

Flex Series mobile units were designed to be upgradable and keep up with the rate of technology evolution. 

“At MTVG we are committed to providing our customers with the technology they need to bring viewers at home the highest quality viewing experience possible,” said Nick Garvin, chief operating officer at MTVG. “MTVG prioritizes the broadcasting experience for our customers and the sports ecosystem. We are proud to be leaders in our industry in giving our customers the ability to make their viewers feel closer to the game than ever.” 

In addition to the Flex Series, MTVG offers the Edge Series, a hypermobile edge computing solution for small to midsize live productions — a solution that reduces the on-site footprint of a production crew. 

More information is available here.  

SAN BRUNO, Calif.—YouTube is no longer recognizing 720p as High Definition content.

Users of YouTube’s desktop site and mobile app are no longer seeing the HD badge next to the 720p resolution option. Instead, the platform now considers content in 1080p as HD.

Previously, content streamed at 360p or 480p was defined as "standard definition," with any content at 720p or above classified as HD.

During the coronavirus pandemic, YouTube lowered the quality of its streams worldwide, switching all content to SD.

This story originally appeared on TVT's sister publication TVBEurope.

LOS ANGELES—Fox Sports will continue its efforts to bring football fans 4K/UHD-quality broadcasts of this season’s NFL games, announcing this week that it will do so for Super Bowl LIV.

Fox Sports executives Michael Davies and Kevin Callahan confirmed the network’s plan during a Sports Video Group Summit on Dec. 17, saying that they will shoot the game in 1080p HDR at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium and will upscale the footage to be broadcast in UHD. This is the same type of process that Fox Sports has been doing to broadcast its Thursday Night Football games in UHD this season; it also did so for the ALCS.

Callahan estimated that about 50,000 people will have the necessary setup to view the game in UHD.

The full story is available on Sporttechie.com.

AMES, IOWA--When the University of Iowa’s Collaborative Technology Services (CTS) unit wanted to up its production game, deploying cameras that were easy to get in and out of remote venues, offered great sensitivity for challenging lighting environments and delivered high-quality 1080p images was high on the list of priorities.

CTS found in the Hitachi Kokusai Electric America Z-HD5500 studio and field production cameras the right solution to satisfy its requirements.

Those requirements have evolved as the CTS mission has grown over the six years of its existence, says CTS manager Roger Suski.

“Our group’s original primary goal was to deliver classes online, so we started with some lower-end technology and made the best of what we had available,” he says. “That often meant cobbling together disparate products as best we could.”

However, as CTS was called upon to produce events, such as convocations, presidential addresses and community activities, a change was needed.

The Hitachi Z-HD5500 offered the technical specs Suski sought and came as a turnkey camera system from one manufacturer to enable CTS productions to “be set up in a standardized way,” he says.

The camera’s native 1080p imager was particularly attractive to Suski. “Some cameras had only 720p sensors that they upconverted for 1080p output,” he says. “Others had 4K sensors that could be licensed to just do 1080p, but then you’re paying more for something you’re not going to use, which isn’t a prudent use of university budget.”

The camera’s light sensitivity was another important feature because CTS frequently must make do with the lighting that’s available at a venue. Ease of setup and fiber connectivity also make the Z-HD5500 the right choice for CTS, he says.

“We used to have to block large amounts of time in anticipation of configuration and setup problems,” he says. “But now I can be confident we’ll have a base level of operation set up in a very short time.”

Having the new Hitachi Z-HD5500 cameras has given Suski the confidence to take on any job that comes in the door, he adds.

More information is available on the Hitachi website.

Photo credit: Paul Jewell

MONTREAL—Rochester N.Y. PBS affiliate WXXI TV has bought nine Grass Valley LDX 82 Flex cameras as part of a recent upgrade to its two production studios. The station has long utilized Grass Valley’s server-based solutions and opted to extend the partnership further when rebuilding its two production studios.

According to Grass, the cameras offer the best sensitivity in all HD formats, including 1080p and a wide color gamut. The LDX 82’s leverage GV’s patented Xensium-FT CMOS imager which allows for better sensitivity, higher resolution and XDR (Extended Dynamic Range) operations with a full 15 F-stops. LDX 82 Series cameras are compatible with the XCU Elite camera base station which features a unique cradle. The cradle can be pre-mounted and pre-wired in the rack, making a secure mechanical and electrical connection, and automatically memorizing all the configuration settings of the production environment, permitting the XCU base station to easily slide in and out whenever needed.

[Read: Grass Valley Unveils LDX 82 Series Cameras]

For increased flexibility, WXXI TV also chose to enhance its new studios with Grass Valley’s RefleX SuperXpander Kit which acts as a large lens adapter to covert handheld cameras into studio-ready production systems.