NASHVILLE, TENN.—Mobile production specialist TNDV made a pit stop at the 2016 CMA Awards back in 2016, using its Exclamation truck to produce a Red Carpet broadcast. The event was one of the first times that TNDV utilized the Exclamation’s 4K capabilities, per TNDV’s press release. TNDV aslo supplied its Aspiration truck to handle additional HD productions, including a livestream over Facebook.

DirecTV hired TNDV and the Exclamation truck for the express purpose of producing a 4K broadcast of the DirecTV AT&T Red Carpet Special. Exclamation deployed its quad-link architecture, which leveraged the truck’s existing Grass Valley Kayenne switcher, AJA Fido fiber bricks, and Ross Xpression graphics to achieve 4K quality. EVS XT3 instant replay servers and Sony 4K cameras were also added to the truck for this production.

The live Facebook stream of the ABC Backstage program was also new this year, joining the usual live stream on ABC.com that TNDV produces. For these streams TNDV employed Hitachi SK-HD 1300 HD cameras that distributed live content back to the truck and then live-switched to an onboard streaming server for delivery to mobile and web platforms.

Additional gear utilized during the production included a Studer Vista X system in the Exclamation for mixing of native 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo feeds; wired and wireless crowd mics; a shared routing architecture between the Exclamation and Aspiration that supported 72 video inputs, 128 video outputs and 32 multiviewer outputs; custom multiviewer outputs were also provided.

This is the ninth year that TNDV has assisted with production for the CMA Awards.