Fremont, CA — June 12, 2018 - Blackmagic Design announced today that URSA Mini 4.6K was used by Kei Takahashi on the shooting of a promotion movie for TROJAN men’s suits private brand by the Japanese major department store Daimaru Matsuzakaya. DaVinci Resolve Studio, DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, UltraStudio 4K and MultiDock were used for editing and color grading, with HyperDeck Studio 12G used for backup recording.

Kei Takahashi, the founder of a Tokyo-based production company KID, specializes in shooting, directing and editing music videos and commercials. For the TROJAN spots, KID provided everything from shooting to editing and color grading.

TROJAN is a men’s suit brand known for a slim silhouette for physically fit Japanese men. This new promotion movie features Masakiyo Maezono, a former national football player and famous football commentator and TV personality, who is shown playing keepie-uppie in TROJAN suit.

“The main reasons I chose URSA Mini 4.6K for this Promotion movie is that I wanted soft looks and high speed recording. High speed recording made it possible to show the dynamic movements of keepie-uppie and details of the stretched suit. I kept in mind the flexibility and functionality of the suit when I was shooting. I planned to grade the footage after shooting so I used RAW 3:1 for recording,” Takahashi said.

He continued: “I used a zoom lens by Sigma. URSA Mini 4.6K’s great merit lies in the fact that you can easily change the lens mount, which widens the scope of lens you can use. I can cope with any project with this single camera, whether the project’s budget is low or high. Even if you are restricted to reasonably priced lenses, you will get high quality images because of the 4.6K image sensor and 15 stops of dynamic range. On top of that, I like the URSA Viewfinder very much because it is sharp and clear.”

He also edited and graded the material using DaVinci Resolve Studio. DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel was used for grading. In the post production workflow, UltraStudio 4K served as an I/O device for video outputs with the MultiDock as a data storage system.

“I regularly use DaVinci Resolve not only for grading but also for editing. By using DaVinci Resolve as an editor, I can spare myself the trouble of conforming — or making a mistake in conforming — timelines from another NLE by EDL or XML. Moreover, you don’t need to produce a huge amount of extra proxy material that would take up disk space. Even if you’re required to make editorial changes on a timeline in the middle of grading, you can just switch to the editing page and modify the timeline easily, without going to another NLE and starting the conform process all over again. I also like the feature to customize the keyboard shortcuts in any way you would feel comfortable, as well as the data burn feature to visually put timecode for reference. I find it amazing that you can even put audio plugins on the Fairlight page if needed,” he said.

“As for grading, I aimed for high contrast looks. I focused on sharpening the face with the midtone detail parameter, in order to create masculine looks with subtle details on the model’s face. After grading, the image looked more masculine and powerful. The wheels and rings on DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel are fantastic. I like its tactile feel and delicate sensitivity. DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel facilitates and shortens the whole grading process from primary to secondary, leaving out the necessity to use a mouse or keyboard. The less I touch a mouse or keyboard, the more I can keep myself focused on creativity,” he concluded.

Press Photography

Product photos of URSA Mini 4.6K, DaVinci Resolve Studio, DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, UltraStudio 4K, MultiDock, HyperDeck Studio 12G and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/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.

Press Contact

Nick Govoni
Zazil Media Group
(e) nick@zazilmediagroup.com
(p) +1 (978) 866 7354

As one of the four major sports leagues in the United States, the National Hockey League ranks fourth in popularity through the eyes of the sporting public. While it’s obviously the major deal north of the border, Canada has roughly one-tenth of the population of its neighbor to the south.

Those facts don’t usually produce the highest TV ratings.

NBC carries the NHL in the United States while Rogers Communications holds the rights in Canada (along with TVA Sports for French language broadcasts), with sports nets for each franchise. At the lower levels — including the minor leagues, college and juniors — hockey isn’t a huge draw like college football or basketball, for instance.

So, how do the millions of enthusiastic fans in North America get their fix? By buying packages from streaming companies as they support the game at its roots, in a way that the economics of a major league broadcast wouldn’t allow.

STREAM SWITCH

In the American Hockey League (AHL), the Hershey Bears have played before a rabid fan base since 1938. The franchise has always drawn well at home, since 2002 in the 10,500-seat Giant Center; and via its web stream, which will be taken over for the 2018–19 season by HockeyTV.

Aaron Henry, who contracts with the Bears through Great Save Productions, said the move from the sport’s other main streaming provider, NeuLion (which works with a wide swath of industries, sports included), for the 2018–19 season was the team’s next move after an upgrade at the rink three years ago to HD bolstered the fan experience.

The team worked with Diversified Systems Inc., of Kenilworth, N.J., on the HD upgrades to the four-sided center ice board, as well as cable boxes, including channel insertion from Radiant Communications Corp., based in South Plainfield, N.J.

Diversified installed a Ross Carbonite switcher, “which led to the creation of an auxiliary bus with different channels: one for feeds in Giant Center, the other for streaming,” Henry said. At the time of installation, the NeuLion feed was encoded at 720p.

“Today, it’s a new 1080i setup with HockeyTV,” which is designing its install to include an encoder that will take in audio-video signals, as well as content from HockeyTV’s smaller cameras, which operate on algorithms and direct the signal to its hub.

Everything the team bought for the HD upgrade is in use, including five Hitachi cameras that are hardwired with triax cabling, plus one wireless. Camera positions include two spots in Section 120 atop the lower level; one in Section 110, behind the goal; one above Section 117 at the Zamboni tunnel; and one above Section 113, for power play setup.

A sixth handheld camera is stationed next to the Zamboni tunnel, where the referees enter the ice at Section 116; there are also two Marshall lipstick cameras mounted behind the goals, with a third at the Bears’ bench.

The Bears took an economical approach to content capture with the ZPlay system from Tightrope Media Systems, which Henry called “a hybrid of EVS and the NewTek 3Play,” which is Windows-based and has similar functions.

ON THE JOB LEARNING

John Mitchell, owner of Digital Multimedia Solutions in Belmont, Mass., is working in a new facility at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., which opened its new 2,000-seat arena earlier this year. The arena features a Nevco video board and a user-friendly broadcast facility, with its game stream provided via Stretch Internet.

“The control room is run by students,” said Mitchell, who also works for the NHL’s Boston Bruins (and the NBA’s Boston Celtics) at TD Garden. “The kids can learn to run replays in 5–10 minutes, which is great, because the challenge in this part of the business is getting the students involved in a learning environment and communicating as a team, with professionals,” he said.

[Read: Marshall POV Cameras Give New Look to Harvard Sports]

The game presentation uses up to 10 cameras, with four Panasonic AW-HE130s and 40S, including two over both goals and two at each blue line; and six Panasonic P-2HD robotic cameras for shoulder or tripod mounts, with Fujinon HA Premier series lenses.

Fiber is built out to five camera locations, with the setup featuring a Blackmagic 72x72 universal router and two switchers: the NewTek TriCaster TC-1 for the broadcast and TriCaster 8000 for inside the in-house show. The two replay machines are also NewTek designs, the 3Play 4800 and the 3Play 440.

Bentley, a member of the Atlantic Hockey collegiate conference, employs “the higher end of the more affordable equipment,” said Mitchell, noting his company has done similar installs at various arenas in the northeast, that don’t require more experienced crews to operate.

“We used to need racks and racks of equipment to make this all work,” Mitchell said. “The NewTek NDI is the largest router in the world ― without having a router.

“This,” he added, “is all about the future and IP video.”

“THE STANDARD”

In the hockey hotbed of Regina, Saskatchewan, Ryan Borowko and his crew bring junior hockey action to the locals in a broadcast facility he said is “great, and we’re making it better.” The technical producer of the Western Hockey League’s (WHL) Regina Pats said setup at the 6,400-seat Brandt Centre is already “the standard of the league for what a video operation should be.”

The Pats’ 10-camera show includes three hardwired and one wireless Sony PMW 320 cameras, plus one robocam under the score clock for on-ice shots, another in the arena’s northwest corner for wide-angle shots during camera switches, and two in-board cameras in the northwest and southwest bottom corners, straight back from the face-off circles that are about six inches off the ice. There are also overhead cameras above both goals, which are replay-only.

Borowko and company switch the show with a Blackmagic A-10, with the NewTek 3Play 4800 for replays. But what sets this setup apart from other WHL teams is the MotionRocket LaunchPad, an all-in-one automatic clip server and playback source for all graphics and videos, including the scorebar atop the scoreboard.

“It’s one of the most unique and versatile platforms available,” he said. “If you can’t afford a Chyron, MotionRocket is your only other option, because you can control up to five surfaces from each machine, as well as handle data ingest from any source, be it Daktronics, OES [which is used by most WHL arenas] or Nevco.”

STREAMING RIGHT ALONG

While these three arenas feature some of the finer facilities in organized hockey, they are somewhat the exceptions, as teams have varying equipment rosters, according to John Fiore, director of HockeyTV in Waterloo, Ontario, which streams the games from teams in about two dozen leagues.

“Some teams do multicamera shoots with as many as five cameras,” Fiore said, “and others just have the one camera at center ice. Some teams offer elaborate broadcasts with pre- and post-game shows, and various bonus content. That all depends on what each team can pay or how many volunteers they have available.”

The job of HockeyTV is “to provide the teams with necessary hardware, which is proprietary, for them to be able to stream from their buildings,” he said.

“No two venues are the same,” Fiore said, “so whatever they are allowed to do and can do varies from team to team, venue to venue.”

[Want more information like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox.]