HEBBEN BRIDGE, U.K.—Calrec has integrated its ImPulseV virtualized DSP software with NEP Platform, bringing its scalable audio processing capabilities to NEP’s growing software ecosystem.

NEP Platform is an orchestration layer that brings software applications together in a unified software-defined environment, enabling broadcasters, rightsholders, leagues and live content producers to deploy, orchestrate and scale resources up or down rapidly as production requirements evolve.

"Pairing the power of NEP’s software orchestration platform with Calrec’s ImPulseV allows NEP to offer customers virtualized audio production environments and services that best fit the needs of each production. The ability to add temporary virtualized processing resources means broadcasters can scale to support their biggest events without significant up-front hardware investment,” said Calrec director of product management Henry Goodman.

"It also simplifies technical complexity. Wherever the processing is located and however a workflow is designed, it should feel seamless to the operator. Working closely with NEP, Calrec’s ongoing ImPulseV development simplifies deployment and gives customers the freedom to build more flexible, scalable production workflows.”

Seamless blending of on-premises infrastructure with remote, virtual or hybrid operations across multiple processing environments has become an increasingly established way for media companies to generate more content. Calrec's ImPulseV DSP software gives companies the freedom to choose how they work with processing resources that flex to meet any production demand.

“NEP Platform brings those trusted applications together, making it easier to deploy, connect and manage them through a unified operational framework. Adding Calrec’s ImPulseV to the NEP Platform ecosystem further expands those choices, giving customers access to scalable, virtualized audio processing while streamlining how modern production workflows are deployed and managed. It's another example of how we're growing an open ecosystem that gives customers the flexibility to build the workflows that best meet their operational needs.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has announced the availability of Riedel's SimplyLive Production Suite through NEP Platform, expanding the platform's ecosystem of technologies.

With the latest integration, customers now have access to one of the industry's leading live production software solutions, giving them greater flexibility to build modern production workflows using software they know and trust, while leveraging NEP Platform to deploy, orchestrate and manage these applications through a single, secure interface.

"Organizations don't want to replace the workflows and expertise they've already invested in or be locked into a single solution. They want the freedom to choose the right software for every production,” said NEP vice president Dan Murphy.

“That's exactly what NEP Platform enables. We provide the orchestration layer that allows customers to deploy, connect and manage trusted software applications through a unified operational framework. The addition of SimplyLive further expands customer choice while continuing to grow the industry's largest software ecosystem for media production."

Riedel's SimplyLive Production Suite offers key capabilities, including live production, replay, ingest recording, streaming and video review in a flexible, modular suite. Through NEP Platform, customers can now seamlessly integrate SimplyLive into broader production workflows, alongside complementary software applications from other trusted suppliers.

Offering a large ecosystem of trusted software applications for media production, NEP Platform gives customers greater choice and control over how they build production workflows.

Rather than replacing software that NEP’s customers already know and trust, NEP Platform provides the orchestration layer to bring applications together into a unified software-defined environment. Through a single, secure interface, organizations can rapidly deploy, orchestrate and scale applications up or down as production requirements evolve.

"SimplyLive is built to give production teams maximum flexibility — whether on a truck, in a studio, remotely or in the cloud. With integrated live production, replay, ingest recording, streaming and video review combined in a single, modular suite, customers can deploy exactly the components their workflows demand,” said Ulrich Voigt, director of Live Production Solutions at Riedel Communications. “Making SimplyLive available through NEP Platform takes that flexibility even further: customers can now embed SimplyLive seamlessly into broader, software-defined production environments — while retaining the operational freedom that modern production teams expect."

Every NEP Platform deployment is backed by the expertise of the teams delivering many of the world's largest and most complex live productions every day.

More information is available on the NEP and Riedel websites.

LONDON—NEP Europe has announced a new multi-year agreement with Wimbledon Broadcast Services (WBS) to remain the broadcast services provider and detailed how it used a number of innovative technologies to produce The Championships, Wimbledon 2026, which continues at the All England Lawn Tennis Club through Sunday, July 12.

"What makes this relationship successful is a shared commitment to continually improving how The Championships is delivered," said Ed Tischler, managing director, NEP UK. "Working alongside WBS, we've evolved the host broadcast operation by finding smarter ways to work, embracing new technologies and giving both teams greater flexibility to innovate. This new agreement reflects the trust we've built together and, most importantly, the commitment of our people who continue to push the operation forward every year."

"Our focus is always on delivering the highest-quality coverage of The Championships for rightsholders around the world while continuing to evolve how the event is produced," added Paul Davies, associate director of broadcast, production, and media rights at The All England Lawn Tennis Club. "NEP has worked in close collaboration with our team to refine workflows, adopt new technologies and continually improve our production approach. That shared commitment to innovation has strengthened the host broadcast operation and provides a strong foundation as we continue to enhance coverage of The Championships in the years ahead."

In making the announcement, NEP also detailed a full range of technical services from across the content supply chain that are being used to deliver the broadcast feed to rightsholders around the world.

The 2026 deployment expanded the use of SMPTE ST 2110 infrastructure across The Championships grounds, with NEP's TFC broadcast control system serving as the central orchestration layer that coordinates workflows across the production. Together, they enable more agile production workflows, streamline replay operations and provide more efficient deployment of engineering and production resources.

Supporting the production are two IP-powered UHD HDR outside broadcast units, a large-scale IP flypack serving 11 production galleries and seven automated courts, and an integrated workflow featuring more than 150 cameras, 32 EVS replay servers, NEP's MediaBank media asset management solution, graphics, quality control and new video review capabilities. More than 350 engineering, operational and commercial specialists from NEP are supporting the delivery of The Championships, along with the Qualifying Competition at Roehampton.

Specialty cameras were also used to expand court coverage. NEP's AI-powered Tr-ACE robotic camera system provided automated capture across Courts 4–7 and 9–11 while enabling a single operator to manage complete on-court coverage. For the first time, Centre Court and No.1 Court also feature NEP's Nucleus camera system, delivering ultra-high-quality 4K super slow-motion images that bring fans even closer to the action.

In addition, Creative Technology (CT), NEP Group's live events solutions division, is delivering one of the largest visual technology deployments at The Championships, with 74 LED displays installed across multiple venues, including the iconic Henman Hill. CT also manages live content production for public viewing areas, helping create an engaging spectator experience throughout the grounds.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has launched Supershooter 11 and Supershooter 65 expanding its mobile production fleet and reinforcing its commitment to delivering flexible, customer-driven production solutions.

“We’re investing in the future of live production—one that is more connected, flexible and scalable than ever,” said Mike Werteen, president of NEP Americas and NEP Group’s global chief commercial officer. “These launches reflect our continued commitment to delivering one of the most advanced and versatile fleets in the industry.”

Supershooter 11 is the latest addition to NEP’s U.S. fleet of more than 50 mobile units supporting customers coast-to-coast. It continues the specialized line of Supershooter units that provide a standardized, familiar environment for streamlining workflows across productions.

Built for premium, large-scale events, the unit is powered by NEP’s Total Facility Control (TFC) broadcast control system and features a fully IP-based infrastructure supporting 1080p and HDR production.

The unit debuted in April supporting golf’s first major championship of the year and will next support the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer. Supershooter 11 will then support multiple clients before it becomes a core facility for the NBA on NBC.

Supershooter 65 expands NEP’s REMI-focused fleet, enabling remote and distributed production workflows that reduce onsite footprint while increasing efficiency and scalability. The unit is already supporting major broadcasters, including Turner Sports and Major League Soccer.

Together, these additions reflect NEP’s strategy to build a full-spectrum fleet to ensure its customers have the right infrastructure for every production—from the largest global events to highly efficient REMI workflows.

The new units are part of NEP’s ongoing investment in innovation and fleet development, including a commitment to introduce multiple new mobile units each year. Additional investments this year include HDR upgrades across the fleet, the deployment of more than 100 new Sony HDC-5500 cameras, new builds supporting customers, including WWE, and an upcoming production expansion unit.

“We’re committed to introducing new mobile units each year, building up standardized NEP solutions aligned with our clients' needs. We’re also decommissioning some units with a broader focus on building a complete ecosystem that supports every production model—from rightsholders and streamers to leagues and federations,” said Werteen.

“By investing across our fleet of major event IP facilities, field acquisition units, software solution, and core media infrastructure, we’re enabling our customers to produce live content however they need.”

This approach is further supported by the recent launch of NEP Platform, a next-generation software orchestration system designed to enable more agile, hybrid workflows. Supershooter 11, Supershooter 65 and other new NEP mobile units are designed with the flexibility to integrate with NEP Platform, enabling scalable software capacity as production needs evolve.

More information is available on the company’s website.

OSLO, Norway—Bridge Technologies will highlight the integration of its VB440 production probe into NEP Platform, the new software orchestration system launched by NEP Group, during the 2026 NAB Show, April 18-22, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The full functionality of the VB440 will be deployable on a software basis through the platform, enabling NEP customers to instantiate Bridge's monitoring and visualization tools alongside other production tools from broadcast manufacturers from a single, virtualized location.

The VB440 is a comprehensive suite of production tools contained within a single appliance. It provides full video scopes, including waveform, vectorscope and histograms, while for audio supporting Dolby Atmos with 64-channel monitoring across unlimited flows as well as LUFS and Gonio meters, along with stereo downmixes and single channel isolation.

For network engineers, the VB440 probe supports packet capture, PTP timing analysis, ST 2022-7 redundancy monitoring and event logging.

These elements are all managed within the Canvas workspace where users can place any number of components on a single screen and arrange them to suit their personal workflow.

At the 2026 NAB Show, Bridge will feature the addition of multi-service AV sync capability, a feature that allows production teams to ensure perfect alignment between different sources of the same service for use when they have been transported via different paths for redundancy purposes. Within NEP Platform, every one of these capabilities will be available as a deployable software application, running on shared commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) compute.

NEP Platform is a fundamental shift in how live production infrastructure is deployed and managed. Rather than building fixed, dedicated systems per function, the platform provides an orchestration layer that deploys and runs trusted third-party broadcast software on shared COTS compute in modern IP environments.

Application versions and configurations are validated before deployment. Lifecycle management, including spinning up, scaling and shutting down, is fully automated, and telemetry delivers real-time visibility into health, performance and resource usage.

For Bridge, this integration provides another way in which production teams can instantiate VB440 monitoring wherever needed for as long as needed, scaling to meet the specific context of the broadcast or event in question. The same deep analysis and best-in-class production tools that broadcasters have relied upon through a dedicated VB440, which can be access in real time by up to eight users through any HTML5 browser, from anywhere in world, are now available on demand, scaling up or down with the production itself.

Visitors to the 2026 NAB Show will be able to see the NEP Platform interface in action, select Bridge from the application catalog and watch as the VB440 software deploys onto shared COTS compute. Once running, it appears as a virtual device within NEP's orchestration layer, where operators complete configuration and execute a live workflow.

See Bridge Technologies at 2026 NAB Show booth C3019.

See NEP at 2026 Show meeting room N253.

More information is available on Bridge Technologies and NEP Group websites.

OSLO, Norway—NEP Europe has redesigned its EU-03 outside broadcast (OB) unit to help broadcasters and rightsholders across Europe scale live coverage more efficiently and reliably.

The modernized unit manages broadcast tools using a software platform, providing customers with the ability to scale up or down depending on the needs of each event. The upgrade also includes a full SMPTE ST 2110 IP transition and supports the growing demand for reliable, high-quality 1080p HDR productions, NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, said.

The revamped EU-03 introduces a more software-enabled production environment to the European market. It supports use of license-based broadcast tools to scale dynamically based on production requirements. This flexibility gives customers more options in how productions are delivered and enables teams to configure the right blend of software and traditional hardware workflows for each project, it said..

EU-03’s software-defined approach—using a common processing platform that can host different applications over time—also helps future-proof the unit, allowing new production capabilities to be added through software updates instead of major rebuilds, it said.

“Our clients want the freedom to produce more content in smarter ways without taking risks on quality or reliability,” said NEP Europe president Lise Heidal. “EU-03 gives customers more flexibility in how productions are delivered, backed by the operational discipline and resilience NEP is known for.”

EU-03 will primarily serve customers in the Nordics, launching in April with coverage of the Norwegian Football League, among other projects.

The unit is also designed to support remote production workflows, connecting directly to NEP’s production hub in Oslo. This enables certain production roles to be handled from the hub when appropriate, helping reduce travel, simplify logistics and improve overall cost efficiency while maintaining the delivery standards expected for high-profile live events, it said.

“EU-03 is built to scale from smaller shows to major events, while helping customers optimize footprint and associated costs,” said Eirik Nakken, director of technology for NEP Norway.

“Across Europe and around the world, we’re investing in this software platform-based approach, combining the flexibility of modern software workflows with the proven resilience and redundancy required for mission-critical live events. We’re very proud of the innovative solutions we’re providing to our customers.”

The EU-03 upgrade strengthens NEP’s ability to deliver end-to-end services—from capture and production to distribution and operational support—while giving customers more choice in how productions are staffed and operated, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has provided new details on how it is using NEP Group to provide a full range of media services, dynamic facilities, broadcast technology and engineering support in both Milan, Italy, and at NBC Sports headquarters in the U.S. for its production of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

NEP has worked with NBC Sports for more than 35 years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics—dating back to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea—and other major international sports events across North America, Europe and Asia.

NBC Sports is utilizing NEP’s global media services in both Milan, Italy, and at NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

In Milan, NEP Europe is supporting coverage of the Opening Ceremony, figure skating and short track competition at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, and broadcast operations at the Duomo TV Tower, the city’s central broadcast and production hub.

Coverage of the Opening Ceremony is utilizing NEP’s IP outside broadcast facilities, including a large onsite production gallery. At the Milano Ice Skating Arena, NEP’s TFC technology-powered flypack system supports an onsite master control room, along with audio, production, and replay galleries.

Each of these venues are equipped with fully 1080p HDR production workflows, ensuring consistent picture quality from capture through delivery. These systems are directly integrated into NBCUniversal’s core broadcast infrastructure, enabling seamless communication between venues and facilities in Milan and NBC Sports’ production and engineering teams in the U.S.

In Stamford, Conn., NBC Sports is utilizing two 1080p HDR NEP remote facilities supporting coverage of freestyle skiing -- including aerials and moguls -- as well as events taking place at the Snow Park in Livigno, Italy.

NEP’s industry-leading engineering and technical staff are supporting NBC operations at each touchpoint, with more than 350 NEP team members working across sites in northern Italy.

“NBC Sports and NBC Olympics’ partnership with NEP is a critical part of the broadcast strategy in Italy and augmenting the facilities in Stamford, offering a wide variety of broadcast solutions from mobile units, fly packs, remote operation support, as well as technical personnel,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering & technology for NBC Sports & Olympics. “The versatility of tech offerings is what is a remarkable part of the ongoing partnership.”

“This year, NEP is celebrating 40 years of innovation, reliability and excellence supporting our customers in delivering the world’s biggest events, and we’re incredibly proud to say that our partnership with NBC Sports has been built and strengthened over nearly four decades of collaboration,” said Mike Werteen, president of NEP Americas and global chief commercial officer of NEP Group.

NBCUniversal is presenting its 20th Olympic Games, 13th consecutive overall, and owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2036, which are scheduled for Milan Cortina (2026), Los Angeles (2028), French Alps (2030), Brisbane (2032), Salt Lake City-Utah (2034), and the Olympic Games 2036 (host yet to be determined).

TV Tech's full coverage of the technologies being used to cover the Olympics can be found here.

PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Production and media services provider NEP Group has announced a major new equity investment of $700 million and the successful completion of a debt refinancing.

The new equity investment in the company was led by 26North Partners LP (26North), together with a group of co-investors.

Carlyle, NEP’s existing sponsor, participated alongside 26North in the investment and will remain its largest shareholder, reaffirming Carlyle’s long-term commitment to the company, NEP reported.

NEP also announced that it has successfully completed a comprehensive debt refinancing. Supported by the Company’s strong performance and global client relationships, the refinancing enhances NEP’s capital structure and reduces its debt levels, reinforcing NEP’s strong foundation for future growth, the company said

26North was founded in 2022 by Josh Harris, who is also the founder and managing general partner of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and the managing partner of the Washington Commanders. This portfolio of franchises across sports and entertainment gives it a unique perspective on the media market and aligns closely with NEP’s work on media and live events, the investment firm reported.

Since launching in late 2022, 26North has grown to approximately $31 billion in assets under management.

Martin Stewart, CEO of NEP Group, said the completion of this transaction underscores investors’ confidence in the company’s future.

“We’re thrilled to take NEP to the next level with outstanding capital partners at our side,” Stewart said. “Josh brings exceptional expertise in creating one of the world’s leading sports and entertainment portfolios, and he and the 26North team have a proven track record of growing businesses across industries. We also couldn’t be more pleased to have earned the continued trust and support of Carlyle.”

During its long history, NEP has worked on many of the world’s most important live productions, including the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the World Cup, the World Series, The Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship, Premier League football, Wimbledon, the Eurovision Song Contest, the Oscars, The Voice, and numerous concert tours, conferences and global events like the recent NATO Summit.

“We’re excited to work with Martin, his leadership team, and Carlyle to build on the strong foundation they’ve created,” added Mark Weinberg, head of private equity at 26North. “NEP represents the kind of business we seek to invest in: a global market leader with a stellar reputation for service delivery, technical expertise and innovation that keeps customers coming back for compelling storytelling around their most important events and experiences.”

NEP was advised by Goldman Sachs, Latham & Watkins LLP, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. 26North was advised by RBC Capital Markets, Greenhill, a Mizuho affiliate, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Barclays and Goldman Sachs served as lead advisors on the refinancing.

For more information visit www.nepgroup.com.

DUBAI—The NEP Group has announced the acquisition of Seven Production, the Dubai-based film and broadcasting independent production company.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In making the announcement NEP reported that the acquisition reinforces its investment and presence in the Gulf Cooperation Council region and is part of NEP’s ongoing expansion in the region, including a new fleet of mobile units, and the recent hires of Waleed Isaac as president for NEP Middle East and Asia and Mohammad Hammoud as chief commercial officer.

The addition of Seven makes NEP Middle East and Asia one of the largest companies of its kind serving broadcasters, production companies, event organizers and government entities in the region. The company will continue to offer a wide range of live production services including outside broadcast (OB) trucks, satellite trucks, flypack systems, connected production facilities, a network of studios in the Middle East, 4K/HD ENG broadcast cameras and equipment, flexible wireless solutions and other services including crewing, live webcasting, Host Broadcast support and systems integration.

“For NEP, this is an exciting expansion in a high-growth market that taps into Seven Production’s deep experience and knowledge,” explained Martin Stewart, CEO of NEP Group. “This partnership marks a significant investment for us in the Middle East, allowing us to deepen and expand our support for broadcasters, leagues, rightsholders, and producers who need a trusted partner equipped to meet their demands.”

“We’re thrilled to welcome Seven to the NEP family—our companies are a perfect match,” added Waleed Isaac, president of NEP Middle East and Asia. “Culturally, we share having a strong focus on listening to our customers and shaping our approach to innovation based on what our customers need. We also understand their need for consistent international delivery with localised expertise. This deal positions us to deliver that seamlessly from day one.

Seven Production will become a part NEP’s Middle East and Asia regional grouping, with Pierre Tabet, managing director of Seven Production, continuing as managing director of the NEP Middle East business.

MONTREAL—NEP Middle East & Asia, a division of NEP Group, has selected Grass Valley as a core technology partner for a major expansion of its IP-based outside broadcast capabilities across the Middle East.

The agreement includes deploying LDX 150 premium live cameras, Kayenne XP switchers, Creative Grading panels, CCS-One centralized control systems, and SuperXpander large lens adaptors. Designed from the ground up around native-IP workflows, the OB units will enhance NEP’s ability to deliver high-end live productions across major events in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the broader region.

“This investment reflects NEP’s ongoing commitment to setting the benchmark in broadcast technology and services,” said Jean Claude Rahme, chief technology officer for NEP Middle East & Asia. “Grass Valley provides reliability, innovation, great partnership and compatibility in our TFC broadcast orchestration platform — all of which offer our clients unparalleled quality and flexibility in live production.”

The two identical IP OB facilities will support broadcasters, rightsholders, and content producers of high-profile sports, entertainment and cultural events. The scale of the deployment—and its alignment with IP-first, software-defined production models—positions NEP as a reference point for broadcasters and production companies throughout the region, Grass Valley said.

“NEP is raising the bar for what’s possible in live production, and we’re proud to help power that vision,” said Hany Bartella, vice president of sales, Middle East and Africa, at Grass Valley. “This partnership goes beyond technology—it’s about leading the media revolution in one of the world’s most dynamic markets.”

This landmark deployment is expected to accelerate broader adoption of IP production models across the Middle East. As NEP brings its IP fleet of Total Facility Control (TFC)-powered facilities and full range of media services into key markets, it continues to grow its ability to offer clients more flexible, efficient and future-ready live production solutions, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has launched Supershooter 10, its’ latest IP-powered mobile production unit, which is now supporting major broadcast production around the United States.

“Every facility we design is laser-focused on helping our clients deliver unforgettable live productions to their audiences,” said Howie Rosenthal, chief commercial officer for NEP Americas. “Supershooter 10 reflects our commitment of continued invest in our fleet, delivering the very best live production tools to our partners, and we’re excited to see it in action at major events this summer.”

Supershooter 10 is the latest unit in NEP’s fleet of more than 50 mobile production units in the United States and the newest in a specialized line of six Supershooter-series units. The Supershooter series began with Supershooter 5, which was designed to give production teams a standardized, familiar environment that streamlines workflows between shows and across locations, NEP said.

Like its predecessors, Supershooter 10 is powered by NEP’s Total Facility Control (TFC) broadcast orchestration platform, delivering a fully IP-based infrastructure supporting 1080p and HDR production, it said.

NEP has additional mobile units coming online throughout 2025 and early 2026, including Supershooter 11 and Supershooter 12, it said.

“Our TFC-powered fleet is purpose-built to scale and evolve with the changing demands of live production,” said Dan Turk, chief technology officer for NEP Americas.

“With TFC, our partners are tapping into the full potential of IP—faster, more flexible, and future-ready. Supershooter 10 is a powerful example of that innovation in action. We’re proud of what we’ve built, but we’re never standing still—advancing our fleet is a constant priority, and we’re always looking ahead to what’s next.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEP Europe is utilizing technology and teams from across Europe for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

The company is the official media services provider for the event for the sixth year in a row.

To meet the demands of the two semifinals and Saturday’s Grand Final, NEP is employing equipment and crew from across its European network, including Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Belgium, and the U.K.

The delivery operation includes:

• Main outside broadcast (OB) unit: UHD2;
• Backup OB unit: UHD24;
• Music mix truck: Music One with dual audio;
• Technical Operations Center: Built on NEP’s TFC broadcast orchestration platform for EBU services and signal distribution;
• 6 wireless RF cameras;
• Augmented reality services;
• 4 EVS servers;
• 27 cameras, including six wireless RF cameras;
• 40 NEP crew, with 780 working days onsite;
• Delivering over 320 monitors around the venue;
• Using over 60 kilometers of cable.

The implementation of the TFC broadcast orchestration platform means NEP can constantly monitor the entire contribution and distribution of all signals involved in Eurovision 2025 on a dashboard, the company said. That gives Eurovision 2025 a faster setup, increased flexibility and more sustainable and efficient resource deployment, NEP added.

“We’re incredibly proud to continue supporting the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with our technical expertise and innovation,” said Lise Heidal, president of NEP Europe. “This event is not only a celebration of music and culture, but also a testament to what can be achieved when the best of European broadcast talent comes together. Every year, we push the boundaries of what’s technically possible in live production and this year is no exception.

“The deployment of our TFC platform has been a game-changer, allowing us to streamline signal management and reduce rigging and setup time dramatically. It’s this kind of software-defined flexibility that allows us to deliver complex live events with greater efficiency and reliability than ever before,” she said.

This article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand TVBEurope.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has announced that award-winning TFC broadcast orchestration platform, which is used in NEP facilities supporting the biggest productions around the world, is now available as a service to be used in any broadcast facility across the industry.

TFC serves as an all-in-one platform tying together hardware and software from multiple vendors into one interface, simplifying control, automating tasks and standardizing workflows.

“Today, TFC is integrated across our NEP facilities worldwide, including our broadcast compounds and NEP Production Hubs. It’s become a solution our customers trust and depend on to deliver the biggest events to their audiences. We’ve learned so much over the years, and now we’re very excited to take this next step in the technology’s evolution by making TFC available as a scalable service partnership,” said Soames Treffry, President, NEP Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

"TFC can now be used by any broadcaster, rightsholder, league, federation, or sports and entertainment producer,” Treffry added. “The platform is also technology agnostic, giving customers the power of choice when it comes to choosing multiple vendors to support a particular show, and the service is always backed by our 24/7 global engineering support.

The TFC platform was originally built by NEP engineers to solve their own challenges around simplifying IP in a broadcast environment, and over the past few years it has become the company’s trusted IP 2110 management system. The platform’s proven track record includes supporting some of the industry’s biggest events and premier broadcasters including the Super Bowl, the PGA TOUR, The Masters Tournament, 2024’s global sporting event in Paris, Seven Network Australia, the World Cup and many other major productions across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.

NEP stressed that TFC is an all-in-one platform, offering key functions that solve challenges and create opportunities for engineering and production teams, including: broadcast control, software- defined networking (SDN), real-time monitoring, and unmatched 24/7, 365 global tech support.

As a broadcast control platform, TFC ties together multi-vendor hardware and software, simplifying what is commonly a complex IP 2110 management process requiring deep IP expertise. TFC simplifies this workflow by providing a user-friendly, intuitive touch-screen experience for any operator.

As a purpose-built SDN, TFC is designed exclusively for broadcast environments, with no extra configuration required, and with real-time monitoring and alerts, engineering teams are able to stay ahead of challenges with the platform providing instant alerts and updates on network health, uptime, latency and device status.

More specifically, NEP noted that its TFC platform is for customers experiencing challenges managing IP, those who don’t have in-house network engineering expertise, or customers migrating from traditional baseband environments to using IP, software and cloud production. TFC’s security layer is also a key component and therefore a solution for any highly visible media platform or critical project.

“TFC has completely changed the way engineering and production teams are able to manage many different layers of hardware and software on a major show site or in a production facility,” said Michael Raimondo, vice president of broadcast technology for the PGA TOUR. “The platform takes something very complex in our industry and simplifies it for our operators, allowing our producers and creators to focus on their number one goal of delivering amazing content to our viewers and fans,”

With its scalability, TFC can support any major sporting event, rightsholder, sports league or federation, entertainment production, news facility, national broadcaster or major television producer or streamer, and it is available today as a licensed software solution, NEP reported.

TFC is part of NEP Group’s full range of global media services, which includes industry-leading mobile units, specialty capture solutions, equipment rentals, connectivity, studios and more. Visit nepgroup.com to learn more about NEP’s global production ecosystem.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group is continuing to invest in its fleet of mobile units dedicated to remote productions with the addition of a new facility now supporting the NHL on TNT for the 2024-2025 NHL regular season and postseason.

The new mobile unit, named Supershooter 64 within NEP’s industry-leading global fleet, is the newest NEP facility designed specifically to support remote productions – often referred to as REMI productions – adding to a lineup of six similar units making remote workflows seamless for broadcasters and rightsholders across the U.S. Supershooter 64 offers additional flexibility with space to handle onsite production, featuring a dedicated production space accommodating eight people, an audio control room, and a video shading area.

Supershooter 64 is designed to be adaptable, offering a slim, flexible profile while still packing production technology. The unit features 12 Sony 2500 cameras, along with a full suite of audio and communications equipment, ensuring high-quality coverage of live events with a reduced onsite footprint.

Initially, the facility is supporting the NHL on TNT and will later serve TNT’s Major League Baseball coverage, MLS Season Pass and productions for NBC.

“As live production continues to evolve, we continue to invest in facilities offering the very best remote production technologies, and Supershooter 64 is another piece of this long-term commitment,” said Mike Werteen, president, NEP Americas and global chief commercial officer.

“Over the last year we’ve seen tremendous growth and success delivering facilities that connect the action onsite to NEP production hubs and customer facilities, enabling production teams to work from wherever they need to produce amazing content for their audiences,” he continued. “We're incredibly proud to say our connected and remote solutions are supporting significant projects for the PGA TOUR, MLS Season Pass, multiple productions for NBC Sports, ESPN, NASCAR, and the NWSL.”

Visit nepgroup.com to learn more about NEP’s media services and connected production solutions.

FRANKFURT, Germany—IP core infrastructure solutions providers arkona technologies and manifold technologies have integrated their technologies into NEP’s global fleet of IP OB trucks as well as its Andrews Hub, part of the NEP network of connected production centers.

“A pivotal element in our strategic growth is adopting technology that not only meets current demands but also anticipates future needs of our customers,” Marc Segar, chief technology officer for NEP Australia, said.

NEP selected arkona’s BLADE//runner AT300 platform to deliver audio and video gatewaying, routing, and processing. BLADE//runner is designed with a flexible, modular software framework, offering a suite of live broadcast production software and hardware tools, including capabilities for audio/video routing, compression and processing, arkona said.

“Arkona’s BLADE//runner platform and manifold’s manifold CLOUD align perfectly with our vision, offering the agility and innovation essential for our expanding mobile fleet and dynamic Andrews Hub,” Segar said. “This partnership enables us to deliver robust and versatile production solutions that meet the extensive needs of our customers worldwide.”

The arkona platform operates on the company’s AT300 FPGA programmable acceleration cards, enabling real-time instantiation, control and monitoring of processing functions via a web-based UI, open APIs and NMOS IS-04 & IS-05, it said.

BLADE//runner makes it easier for NEP to manage complex multisite productions. The platform’s adaptability reduces the technical barriers associated with live broadcasting, ensuring operational efficiency and high-quality production standards in diverse environments, the company said.

NEP will rely on BLADE//runner to ensure seamless transitions across different production environments. The system is controlled by NEP’s TFC broadcast control platform. The manifold CLOUD, an ultra-low-latency multiviewer, is integrated into NEP’s technology stack to enhance its capabilities, the company said.

NEP also is integrating BLADE//runner and manifold CLOUD as part of a major upgrade to its IP-enabled Andrews Hubs in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. The Andrews Hubs is one of the world’s largest interconnected remote production networks, connecting 59 sporting venues via a high-bandwidth network.

The installation of manifold CLOUD multiviewer, slated to be one of the world’s largest, features in excess of 1,300 inputs and 500 outputs. Running on COTS FPGA programmable acceleration cards, manifold CLOUD handles demanding live sports productions while offering scalability, resiliency, quick deployment and unified control.

More information is available on the arkona technologies and manifold websites.

NEW YORK—Vicon and Lux Machina have announced that they have outfitted NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' brand new Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center with next generation motion capture and virtual production technology.

The school is offering a new 36-credit Master of Professional Studies degree in Virtual Production that features training at the Martin Scorsese Center for Virtual Production, which was announced in 2023 and opened this Sept. The 45,586 square foot facility is located on the top floor of Building 8 at Industry City, a 35-acre innovation campus on the Brooklyn waterfront. 

The Center features two double-height, column-free stages, two television studios, state-of-the-art broadcast and control rooms, dressing/make-up rooms, a lounge and bistro, scene workshops, offices, post production labs, finishing suites, and training spaces. Applications for the fall of 2025 are now open. 

Vicon is a pioneer in motion capture technologies and the NEP Group's Lux Machina is a consultancy focused on complex, large scale live shows, film production and installations.

The Center has been outfitted with Vicon’s Shōgun entertainment market software and 40 Vicon cameras, which deliver superior resolution, speed and performance. The combination of the two provides the Center with a state-of-the-art motion capture system for virtual production.

"This project is a natural fit for both Vicon and Lux Machina given our focus on education and empowering the next generation of digital creatives," said David 'Ed' Edwards, Vicon's VFX product manager. "Vicon software and cameras are installed in dozens of universities across the globe for applications spanning virtual production, to sport and exercise medicine, to engineering and robotics research. We're thrilled to play a part in outfitting NYU's world-class Virtual Production Center, which will open the door for tremendous innovation in the field."

Vicon counts the best effects houses in the entertainment world among its users with Lux Machina Consulting being a long-term partner that has worked on pioneering virtual productions for “The Mandalorian”, “House of the Dragon”, “Barbie” and “Masters of the Air”. 

"We love to see the innovation Vicon is pioneering in markerless as motion capture continues to evolve," said India Vadher-Lowe, Lux Machina's head of motion capture. "The ability to mix and match workflows will help us bring to life experiences for customers that were previously limited to the motion capture studio. There's a whole new world of possibilities that we'll soon be able to experience, and we look forward to putting that within reach in the near future."

To learn more, visit www.vicon.com and www.luxmc.com. 

SYDNEY—NEP Group has purchased several Sony NXL-ME80 media edge processors with Sony’s new HEVC ultra-low latency encoding technology combining a high compression ratio, very low latency and maintenance of the highest picture quality for remote and distributed live productions.

“The NXL-ME80 media edge processors are high-quality, multi-channel encoders utilizing Sony’s ultra-low latency compression which makes them ideal for live production applications. They work with both ST-2110 and SDI interfaces and we are successfully using them on a current remote hub project,” said Sam Scally, NEP New Zealand technology manager.

For the project, NEP is transferring 16 streams from its main live cameras using two NXL-ME80 units on diverse 5Gb links with -7 functionality at 45Mb per stream. The NXL-ME80 units are managed from the NEP hub at both ends, the company said.

The NXL-ME80s form part of a remote production system where we have 13 cricket venues around the country connected back to our Auckland CBD hub facility. We operate on links as low as 1Gb/s,” said Scally.

Part of the Sony Networked Live ecosystem, the NXL-ME80 optimizes live production by using on-premise, cloud, hardware or software resources to meet specific requirements. The NXL-ME80 acts as a gateway between LAN and WAN. It enables efficient use of available network bandwidth for remote production and video contribution, thereby lowering network costs—a benefit NEP is realizing across multiple locations, the company said.

“The NXL-ME80 also supports multiple streams to cater to individual live production requirements efficiently. With the capability to convert and compress multiple video channels, content transmission with high picture quality is achievable, even with limited network bandwidth.”

NEP required a high-quality encoder and decoder that could send signals across a small network pipe while working with a traditional broadcast environment using both SDI and ST 2110, said Scally.

“We have been very impressed with the quality of the NXL-ME80 [units], as they enable us to transmit high quality images from remote locations with relatively low bandwidth,” he said.

NEP is using its NXL-ME80 units in a number of different environments, one of which is covering international and national cricket matches remotely.

“We are sending signals from cameras and third-party providers capturing cricket around the country with SDI out of our existing trucks,” said Scally. “They are sent to an NXL-ME80 in our Auckland hub where they are decoded to SDI, then encapsulated to 2110. We are using the ME80s in conjunction with a Sony MLS-X1 switcher. By using this workflow, the NXL-ME80 gives us excellent picture quality and they have been very reliable.” 

More information is available on the company’s website.

SYDNEY—NEP Group has acquired 10 new Sony MLS-X1 Live Switchers, bringing the video production facilities company’s total to 31, Sony said today.

“NEP initially purchased 21 MLS-X1 units to upgrade and expand our current Sydney facility and deploy them in time for last year’s large international sporting competition held across Australia and New Zealand,” said Marc Segar, NEP senior vice president of technology.

The MLS-X1 is part of the Sony Networked Live ecosystem through connected hybrid on-premises and cloud capabilities. 

“The new MLS-X1 Live Switchers are currently being used in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland on a variety of projects, productions and events. This really highlights the versatility and efficiency of the MLS-X1 Live Switchers within NEP's production ecosystem,” said Segar.

“By being able to allocate switcher resources between virtual configurations and seamlessly integrate additional hardware as needed, the MLS-X1 enhances NEP's ability to handle a diverse range of projects and events across multiple locations. Moreover, the native ST-2110 support ensures easy integration into NEP's existing facilities, further streamlining our production workflows. 

NEP is among the leaders producing events that increasingly require additional resources as the use of 4K increases and larger switcher configurations are needed, said Sony.

“The MLS-X1 is easily expanded and allows for efficient use of resources. It can be configured for large global 4K productions or divided into smaller HD productions as required. NEP typically uses an MLS-X1 or multiple MLS-X1s in our Andrews production hubs to manage all the major sports coverage that we produce on a weekly basis,” said Segar.

The MLS-X1 offered several benefits that attracted NEP to the switcher, including its modular approach and scalability, said Sony.

“We love the way we can share resources efficiently across various projects, whether it's a large-scale international sporting event or a smaller, localized production,” said Segar. “The scalability and flexibility of the MLS-X1 Live Switcher align perfectly with NEP's needs, allowing us to adapt to the demands of different projects seamlessly.”

More information from Sony Australia and Sony New Zealand is available online.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has announced a notable expansion of its connected production ecosystem with new facilities and new partnerships with rights holders, sports leagues, broadcasters and OTT providers.  

The expansion is built on technologies and solutions that will be on display at the 2024 NAB Show by NEP executives between April 13 and 17 in Las Vegas. 

In addition to existing partnerships around the globe, NEP reported that the expanded connected production ecosystem is now providing support for such partners as the PGA Tour, NASCAR and MLS in the United States, Dyn Sport in Germany, WRC in Finland, TV4 and the Swedish Hockey League in Sweden, and the International Press Center – Résidence Palace in Brussels, Belgium. 

The expansion includes the new fleet of nine all-IP mobile units that debuted for the 2024 PGA Tour season.

The connected production solutions offered by NEP now include over 20 production hubs, 100 control rooms, 200 mobile units, and 100 flypacks worldwide that NEP said allows it to offer various production options and services tailored to individual needs and comprehensive solutions from content capture to distribution. 

The ecosystem, powered by NEP’s Total Facility Control (TFC) platform, enables seamless operation and collaboration across NEP’s global network of facilities and hubs.

The key expansions over the last year includes bringing nine new production hubs into North America, APAC and Europe, a new hub in Singapore, and expanding the Andrews Hubs in Australia and the VISTA Hub in South Florida. NEP created its global ecosystem to allow for any combination of traditional production deliveries, at one or multiple event venues, with remote capabilities managed off-site, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away.

“Our connected production solutions are complementary to NEP’s industry-leading fleet of mobile units and OBs, and our recent partnerships are great examples of this hybrid approach of serving our clients both onsite and remotely,” explained Mike Werteen, president, NEP Americas and global chief commercial officer. “From the new fleet of nine all-IP mobile units that debuted for the 2024 PGA TOUR season, to the connected production hubs established around the globe – we’re providing our clients with more production tools and flexibility to meet their needs, and we’re honored to collaborate with their amazing teams to build the best production solutions for today and the future.”

The solutions are built on NEP’s proprietary broadcast control and networking platform, TFC. It makes using IP 2110 infrastructure fast and intuitive and it empowers production teams to focus on creating incredible content instead of integrating disparate technologies. TFC is used throughout NEP’s connected production facilities across the globe, giving production, video, audio, replay, graphics and engineering operators the ability to program show setups using a touchscreen, scale setups up and down, and share resources between any other facility within NEP’s connected production ecosystem, providing universal control, management and security.

NEP also reported that its technical and commercial staff will be on hand at the 2024 NAB Show, at the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 14-17, 2024. 

Staff will be available by appointment in both private and semi-private meeting spaces in the North Hall. 

NEP’s presence at the 2024 NAB Show also includes expert panel appearances, featuring: Geert Thoelen, Director of Technology, NEP Belgium, Scott Rothenberg, SVP, Technology & Capital Planning, Cameron O’Neill, NEP Japan Country Manager, Ryan Jones, Director, Systems Integration, and Dan Murphy, VP, Product Management. 

For more information on connecting with NEP at NAB, visit NEP’s 2024 NAB Show page. 

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has announced that it has named Martin Stewart as its new CEO. Steward, who had been the company’s chief financial officer, succeeds Brian Sullivan.

Sullivan steps down from being CEO after leading NEP’s recovery from the severe impact of COVID through to record profitability and strategically repositioning the business for growth in new areas such as centralized production, the company said. 

With a career spanning over 30 years in leadership roles in the media telecommunications and sports sectors, NEP reported that Stewart has led businesses through both acquisitions and organic growth and that his insights and experience helped NEP identify new growth and efficiency opportunities during his time as CFO.

Stewart has led several companies that have undertaken successful change programs including at Ono in Spain, OSN in Dubai and Sky NZ in New Zealand. Prior to these roles he was CFO at Sky UK as the company transformed from an analogue business to a digital one and helped double the size of the business during his tenure. He has held many other executive and non-executive roles gaining experience in both public and private companies.

In a statement announcing the leadership change, the NEP Board of Directors said, "We thank Brian for his significant contributions to NEP Group including delivering record profitability for the company in 2022 and winning marquee centralized production contracts that will be a foundation of future growth. We appreciate his dedication and service and wish him all the best in his future endeavors. We are delighted Martin will be stepping up to lead the company as it enters its next phase of growth. Martin is an established leader with an impressive track record driving business transformation, which will be hugely influential as we continue to grow the business and double down on operational excellence.”

The company is also announced that effective immediately, Doug Kovach will be promoted to the role of CFO, NEP Group. 

Kovach has been with NEP for over 12 years and is currently NEP’s senior vice president, finance and treasurer. In addition to his finance expertise, he brings a deep knowledge of NEP’s mergers and acquisitions, tax planning strategies, global treasury activities and accounting and operational processes.

For more information about NEP, visit www.nepgroup.com. 

THATCHAM, U.K.—NEP Group have purchased more than 30 Rx 2000 rasterizers from test and measurement expert PHABRIX for broadcast of NFL games.

The advanced analyzer/generator units, to be supplied in three batches, the Rx 2000 rasterizers will be used to text signals from broadcast trucks and other on-site systems at football stadiums, the company said.

The rasterizers support four channels of 2K/3G/HD/SD-SDI video and audio analysis and monitoring. They also can provide signal generation. Up to 16 devices can be analyzed and eye and jitter tested at the same time via an external display. Monitoring of the instruments and video can be done using dual built-in screens and audio speakers, it said.

The need to verify and validate signals while covering games motivated NEP to acquire the units. The mobile facilities provider also will use the Rx 2000s for quick signal generation and testing from central points in the operational systems as well as to provide accurate feedback to engineers and operations personnel on site, it said.

"Systems utilized by the league for game day operations are critical and support officiating, injury, coaching and other aspects, and therefore must be fully operational on the day,” said Scott Nardelli, senior vice president of integrated solutions at NEP U.S. Broadcast Services. “Having the appropriate test equipment on-site at each of the locations is imperative to achieving that goal of 100% uptime and no disruption of game operations. We were already familiar with the capabilities of PHABRIX equipment and are confident that the rasterizers will be beneficial to our production for the broadcasts.”

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has added three Calrec IP ImPulse system to expand its AoIP and remote production capabilities with the range of Apollo surfaces already installed in its Supershooter 6, Supershooter 17 and Supershooter 25 mobile production units.

A fourth is being installed in Supershooter 7, which is scheduled to roll out next year, it said.

Since January, NEP has used ImPulse on a weekly basis, providing ST 2110-30 flows over a 10Gb fiber link between the Supershooter 17 field acquisition unit on the site of an event and the Supershooter 25 production crew workspace at a centralized production facility, it said.

Both units can be parked up to 2,500 miles away from each other at any particular time, and the ImPulse at the facility can provide control on up to four Apollo mixing surfaces with another at the remote site, it said. 

Supershooters 17 and 25 run as part of NEP’s non-IP fabric, and Supershooter 6 is fully integrated into the company’s switch fiber. 

“The future of broadcasting is utilizing ST 2110 IP routing systems,” said Pat Zollinger, senior systems engineer at NEP Group. “All of our new production trucks and centralized production builds will be built leveraging IP technology and our in-house control system, TFC. Calrec has provided the support necessary for us to easily integrate the ImPulse core into our TFC system and represents a technological leap in I/O capacity in and out of the surface from the network fabric and control system.

“We’re constantly updating and upgrading our fleet of mobile units and Calrec provides NEP engineers with direct access to Calrec engineers and support staff," Zollinger continued. "During our 30-year relationship with Calrec, we’ve used everything from the Q2, the Alpha, the Apollo and now ImPulse. We have great confidence with Calrec’s ImPulse product line and know that Calrec will be standing with us as we navigate the ever-changing IP landscape.”

ImPulse, a powerful DSP engine, has native SMPTE ST 2110 connectivity. Compatible with Calrec Apollo and Artemis consoles, it offers a simple upgrade path for users moving to the IP domain, the company said.

It enables 3D immersive path widths and panning for next-generation audio with height and 3D pan controls and has flexible panning and downmixing built-in. ImPulse allows up to four independent mixing environments to run from a single core, regardless of its location. Each independent mixer can access up to 1,458 paths, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

MELBOURNE—Mediaproxy has announced that the outside broadcast and playout facilities group NEP is using Mediaproxy’s LogServer software for SMPTE ST 2110 recording at its Norwegian operation.

NEP Norway first began using Mediaproxy software in 2017, when it chose LogServer for its next generation compliance recording on the SDI channels distributed from its playout center. This replaced a custom-built system and when the company needed a logging system for new ST 2110 services, the decision was taken to expand the installation, which was facilitated by LogServer's easy software-based integration for uncompressed IP video sources, Mediaproxy reported. 

The new channel platform was installed in the second quarter of this year. 

In addition to compliance monitoring, the solution is also used to check problems on already-broadcast programs, while the As-run feature provides a record for advertisers of what has been sent to air.

NEP Norway technical manager Rune Olsen explained that the key benefits of LogServer included its ease of use, stability and excellent support from Mediaproxy. 

"The software has worked without a hitch from the get-go and Mediaproxy is very fast in responding to any questions we may have," he said. "The interface is also very easy and efficient to use. It just works and does the work it is supposed to do."

"We are very pleased to continue our association with NEP Norway, which has entered a new and exciting phase in its business development by expanding into SMPTE ST 2110," added Mediaproxy’s Rajesh Patel, vice president of sales and solutions for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). "Our company has been involved in the development of ST 2110 from the very start through our membership of AIMS. While it is now established and widely used in broadcasting, ST 2110 continues to be a leading edge technology that we at Mediaproxy are supporting through investment in engineering that allows us to fulfil customer demands for new technologies very quickly."

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PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has outfitted Supershooter 6, one of its newest production vehicles, with 12 frames of Cobalt Digital signal processing, conversion and distribution gear.

The unit, which supports IP, 3G, 1080p, HDR and is 4K-ready, is equipped with 12 Cobalt HPF-9000 20-slot, high-power-frames packed with openGear form factor cards and the company’s OGCP9000 Ethernet remote control panel optimized for color correction use, Cobalt Digital said.

The configuration consists of 4K- and HDR-capable cards and supports up, down and cross conversion, audio processing and color correction. To maximize space, the system enables multiple capabilities, including multi-rate distribution, 3G/HD-to-SDI and analog down conversion, high-density-coax-to-fiber conversion and multipath up, down and cross conversion, in a small footprint.

The deployment also includes more than 100 Cobalt openGear distribution amplifiers, including the Cobalt 9910, 9501 and 9410, which enables Supershooter 6 to support 3G, HD, SD and ASI production requirements. The technology provides dual and multirate reclocking, analog video looping distribution with EQ and extensive downconverting and output crosspoint features, it said.

The 53-foot mobile studio has numerous Cobalt 9905-MPx software defined audio/video processing cards installed, which provide quad path 3G/SD/HD UHD up, down and cross conversion, frame sync, flexible AES and MADI embed/de-embed, 3D-LUT-PRO, advanced color correction and branding capabilities, it said.

Supershooter 6 also has the 9902-UDX 3G/HD/SD-SDI up, down and cross converter, frame sync, audio embedder/de-embedder with four analog audio and composite analog CVBS video input/output, it said.

Among the options deployed with the solution are presets to convert SDR to HDR and back, 3D LUTs, 4K color corrector software, RGB color correction with gain, lift and gamma chroma and luma clipping, it said.

The production vehicle, which hit the road in May, is being used to support live production of the NHL playoffs and the women’s and men’s College World Series.

“NEP was Cobalt’s first customer when the company launched 25 years ago, and we’re proud that they still come to us for the most advanced and reliable solutions for their fleet,” said Suzana Brady, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Cobalt. 

“NEP is globally renowned for bringing content to life, and those events must be flawlessly delivered for an exceptional viewer experience. There is no room for failure or compromised quality, and they’ve trusted Cobalt to deliver market-leading and technologically advanced solutions they can count on for over a quarter of a century,” she said.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

LONDON—NEP UK has inked a deal to extend its broadcast services partnership with the All England Lawn Tennis Club supporting broadcast delivery of the Wimbledon Championship for four years, the company said.

Having provided host coverage of the tennis championship since 2014, NEP worked with Wimbledon Broadcast Services this year to broadcast every match across all 18 courts for the first time. The coverage included center court shots in UHD High Dynamic Range (HDR).

Eleven of the courts at Wimbledon were crewed by camera operators and seven used a hybrid of operators and NEP’s Tr-Ace system. Coverage of this year’s event, June 27-July 10, was the first time the event has been held over 14 days with Middle Sunday now a permanent feature in the schedule. Broadcast coverage was provided by NEP UK using fully redundant IP technology, NEP said.

NEP UK also provided both host and unilateral coverage to the BBC and other broadcasters for Wimbledon, it said.

Working closely with the All England Club, NEP UK deployed more than 100 camera positions and 40 EVS servers to record and replay every ball played, producing coverage of every court. The feeds were then distributed by NEP to all RHB onsite, and passed to IMG, EBU and other rights-holding broadcasters around the world, it said.

Sony 3500 cameras were used to capture all of the action live in UHD from the courts. All courts were delivered in 1080 SDR 709 with center court also available in UHD HDR 2020 to deliver the optimum broadcast quality experience for fans at home. NEP’s Venus and Ceres units were used on Center and No.1 Court.

Fletcher Group’s Tr-ACE system ensured that the robotic camera heads can track all the action on the court. The Tr-ACE system uses a mixture of image recognition and LIDAR technologies to track players, which enables one operator to control all of the cameras as well as mix the show at the same time, it said.

With Tr-ACE technology, an operator simply taps the person of interest on the screen and then select whether a wide, mid or close-up shot of the player is desirable. Once done, pan, tilt, zoom and focus functions are all automatic, it said.

NEP sister company Creative Technology was onsite during the event running full audio RF operations. Staff used talkback, in-ear monitors and radio mic coverage across the 14-acre site to ensure smooth production. Creative Technology also ran the screens operating across Wimbledon, including all scoreboards on court and around the campus and screens for the Queue and The Hill, it said.

“NEP UK are all incredibly proud of our long and successful partnership with the All England Club in delivering The Championships," said Simon Moorhead, managing director of NEP UK Broadcast Services, NEP UK. "This is one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world—[one] that has the eyes of the world watching. Our partnership completely transcends the pure provision of technical broadcast equipment and services. It is about our proven, collective understanding and collaboration in the pursuit of quality in all parts of the process, and our absolute commitment to provide a rock-solid operation, with agility and flexibility, whilst continuously innovating and improving,” 

More information is available on the company’s website. 

HILVERSUM, The Netherlands—NEP Worldwide Netherlands has equipped its new production facility at its studio headquarters here in Media Park with 10 Module-R technical control desks from Custom Consoles—three desks for the new suites and seven dedicated to editing in post-production. 

Two production control rooms are each outfitted with a 23-foot wide inline Module-R with a 3U-high sloping-front equipment pod along the rear of each of its 13 bays. They include a custom section to house a Grass Valley production switcher. Behind each is another 23-foot wide, 14-bay desk, similar in design and positioned in parallel to the Module-R consoles in the front of the rooms, the company said..

Three 12-foot-wide, seven-bay inline desks provide supporting control facilities. Two audio suites are equipped with a U-shaped Module-R desk, each configured to accept a Lawo audio production control panel, it said.

A 12-foot wide inline video switching control desk, with seven bays, each offering 3U-high equipment pods, has been installed in a production control room. The desk’s design also supports two groups of camera control panels.

All 10 Module-R desks have matching graphite Marmoleum worktops, gray side panels and silver-anodized extruded aluminum legs with black-painted floor skids, it said.

"NEP has proved a very loyal customer over the years, and we are very pleased to have been chosen to help equip them for this project," said Custom Consoles sales manager Gary Fuller. 

More information is available on the Custom Consoles website.

LONDON—NEP has announced that it worked with BBC Studios Events on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, providing facilities for the host broadcaster's operation. 

NEP said that it delivered the outside broadcast services across five separate events, including the BBC Platinum Jubilee Concert and Pageant. 

The NEP outside broadcast trucks used in the event included Venus, Sargasso, and Voyager. They provided coverage with a range of cameras. 

The BBC was the host broadcaster. NEP operations for the BBC were overseen by project manager Richard Lancaster. 

It was “an honor for NEP and the entire team to be entrusted with the broadcast technical facilitation of such a momentous occasion by our partners at the BBC Studios,” said Simon Moorhead, managing director, NEP UK Broadcast Services. 

The bank holiday weekend started with the Queen’s birthday parade on Thursday, followed by the lighting of the Jubilee beacons.  Saturday hosted the centerpiece event of the weekend - the BBC Platinum Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace. 

Collaborating with BBC Events, BT Broadcast & Media delivered host connectivity. 

NEP Connect provided camera crew and connectivity to BBC Studios Kids & Family for live inserts into CBBC Mash-Up and Blue Peter with presenters and Stanley the iconic puppet monster interviewing all the guest artists backstage at the concert.

Creative Technology provided the technical delivery of the Buckingham Palace projections and main stage LED screens for the celebrations. Custom graphics displayed across the screens by NorthHouse Creative, with camera imagery provided by NEP for the broadcast production. The LED screens were also used for the Trooping of the Color on Thursday, the Thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s on Friday and the pageant on Sunday.

The weekend was rounded off by the Jubilee pageant on Sunday afternoon. NEP provided the broadcast coverage from the show. 

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has announced that its U.S. Broadcast Services team has released a new mobile unit, Supershooter 6, powered by NEP’s Broadcast Control (TFC). TFC is the proprietary software engine that powers NEP’s Global Production Ecosystem.  

“We are thrilled to continue the progression of our IP mobile unit designs in this new generation of trucks,” said Glen Levine, president, NEP U.S. Broadcast Services. “Supershooter 6, a single unit with a support unit as needed, is similar to Supershooter 5, featuring NEP’s TFC Control System….Our new platforms are designed for ease of tying mobile units together in large compounds, as well as for tying into the NEP Global Production Ecosystem. As always, we are using new ideas and technology to create an amazing fleet.” 

Designed to solve the industry’s issues related to IP control, TFC provides an easy-to-use broadcast control and monitoring system to streamline, simplify and speed up the configuration and connection of on-site and remote facilities, NEP said. Developed internally by NEP software engineers, TFC is technology agnostic, making it compatible with virtually any technology in the broadcast and live event environment. 

TFC’s ability to ease configuration reduces the amount of time needed on-site to manage increasingly complex IP-based infrastructure and reduces the risk of human error. It also offers redundancy and built-in safeguarding for all networked flows, which means more secure, stable, and streamlined infrastructure for NEP’s clients. 

1080p-ready and 4K-capable, Supershooter 6 is a powerful single-truck unit featuring a Grass Valley Kayenne X-Frame switcher, a Calrec Apollo audio console, Sony HDC-3500 cameras, two 5500 cameras, a Lawo IP router, multi-viewer and EVS XT VIA servers. 

Designed with a user-friendly UI and automated functionality, TFC allows for configuring, provisioning, orchestration, and granular monitoring of broadcast, IT and network systems. 

Platform Control Services include IP routing, systems and network monitoring, configuration, workflow automation, device control, tally and general-purpose input/output management, communications orchestration and control, resource scheduling and sharing, security, rights holder management and user management, NEP said. 

NEP is committed to equipping new mobile units with TFC, including SRT3, released earlier this year. Supershooter 5, released in May, 2021, was the first fully IP mobile unit to be powered by TFC. 

Supershooter 61, a new field acquisition unit, was released earlier this year. In addition, NEP mobile units Supershooter 1, TS2, Supershooter 29, EN1 and NCPXI are slated for upgrades, NEP said.

‍PITTSBURGH—The NEP Group has issued a new blog post and video of their U.S. Mobile Units Field Shop, which is currently working on 18 mobile units and is in the final construction stages of their newest unit, the SuperShooter 6.  

“We have a lot going on here,” explained Joe Signorino, vice president, systems integration & design at NEP.  

The blog notes that the work on mobile units at the shop is built on a foundation of listening to clients and developing solutions to further their production goals, with one truck being custom-built for live sports productions next season and another truck being tailored to fit another client’s content needs. 

Noting that “the work here never stops,” Signorino adds that “there’s about 18 mobile units that we’re working on at the moment, in various stages of design and build.”

“There’s a staff of about 35 people that work at our NEP Systems Integration facility,” he said. “That ranges from mechanical and systems designers, project management, carpentry, woodworking, paint, electricians and the technical support group which includes wiremen and system installers. Then part of that group works on the commissioning and testing of the system before it’s rolled out for its first job.” 

‍In the coming months, the NEP Systems Integration & Design team will put the finishing touches on a brand-new mobile unit, Supershooter 6.  

Supershooter 6 is equipped with NEP’s Platform Control (TFC). A proprietary software solution developed in-house, NEP’s TFC is engineered to solve the industry’s issues around IP control. TFC is compatible with virtually any technology in the broadcast and live event environment, and this latest truck comes pre-loaded with its brilliance. 

“Supershooter 6 is designed with a lot of flexibility in mind,” Signorino says. 

“It’s a very large IP system so it has a tremendous amount of capabilities,” he explained. “It’s set up and designed to be able to integrate other NEP companies and equipment with ease, and it’s also designed to tie in with our global infrastructure. With the networking topology and using TFC as a control system already integrated into these projects, the options are almost endless.” More information on the shop and a video touring the facility is available here. 

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has announced the release of a new mobile unit, SRT3, which was custom-built to support NASCAR’s Shared Resources.

SRT3 connects to both the NEP and NASCAR centralized production environments, NEP said. Its main functions include supporting all of NASCAR’s broadcast obligations, including the distribution of shared resource signals needed by various broadcast partners, the encoding of signals used for the remote production of world feeds, screen feeds, officiating, scoring and race control.

“Implementing NEP’s SRT3 for the 2022 NASCAR season has been a successful collaboration between our production teams and NEP’s talented team of broadcast engineers,” said Steve Stum, vice president, operations and technical production, NASCAR.  “We are excited about what this new mobile unit is adding to NASCAR’s Shared Resources and to our various broadcast partners, both for today and for what it will provide us in the future.”

This new mobile unit serves as the broad solution supporting NASCAR’s main production, and has the ability to easily transition to employ more IP gear so that it can support NASCAR’s current and future needs, NEP said. 

SRT3 is powered by NEP’s Platform Control (TFC), a proprietary software solution that comes pre-loaded in new NEP mobile units like SRT3. 

TFC is the control system used throughout NEP’s ecosystem, including traditional remote facilities as well as centralized production facilities. TFC allows for configuring, provisioning, orchestration and granular monitoring of broadcast, IT and network systems. Built by NEP’s software engineers to solve the industry issues around IP control and software defined networking (SDN), TFC is technology agnostic, making it compatible with virtually any technology in the broadcast and live event environment.

SRT3 debuted at NASCAR’s inaugural “Clash at the Coliseum” race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Feb. 6, 2022. The LA Memorial Coliseum was transformed from a grass venue to a quarter-mile asphalt racetrack for this unique exhibition, and NEP’s SRT3 supported NASCAR in capturing the sights and sounds to tell the story of this historic event for the sport.

Following the success of its first show, SRT3 is now supporting NASCAR’s marquee event, this week’s 64th running of the Daytona 500, before deploying to each race on the 2022 circuit.

“The collaboration of NEP’s Systems Integration, Engineering and Remote Operations teams has evolved with much success. This project brings new innovations to the broadcast compound and everyone is proud of what’s been accomplished,” said Glen Levine, president, NEP U.S. Broadcast Services. “This continues NEP’s decades-long relationship with NASCAR. Like so many projects we’ve worked with NASCAR on over the years, this technical solution was born in partnership with their production and technical teams. They were in need of a broadcast solution and trusted NEP to deliver a mobile unit design that meets all of their needs.” 

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has selected NEP Group to provide mobile broadcasting, engineering consultation, and technical support for its production of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, from Beijing, China, February 2–20, 2022. 

NBCUniversal provides coverage of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games from Feb. 2-20, featuring a Winter Olympics-record 2,800+ hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. 

As part of its work with NEP, NBC Sports will use a 1080P HDR flypack, cameras and EVS XS-VIA replay with associated services, gear and technical staff to support NBC Sports’ live coverage of events from Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing, as well as remote workflows connecting teams working offsite.

“Due to the location of the Winter Olympic venues and the limited space in the broadcast compound, a custom Fly-pack solution was necessary for NBC Sports’ production,” said Chip Adams, vice president of venue engineering, NBC Olympics. “NEP, along with its regional division located in Singapore, designed a system and sourced the facilities and engineering staff that met the extensive HDR production requirements required for this high-profile venue. Having a 30+ year partner gives us confidence that these types of challenging projects will be successful.”  

“NBC Sports and NEP started our journey together more than 30 years ago,” added Glen Levine, president of NEP’s U.S. Broadcast Services business. “We’re so proud of our relationship and the opportunity NBC Sports has given us to become an integral part of their production of this event. We’re thrilled to bring our broadcast engineering expertise, technology and talent to support this successful, long standing partnership.”

LONDON—NEP has announced that its fleet of outside broadcast (OB) trucks in the UK are now being powered by recycled biofuels supplied by Green Biofuels Ltd.

The switch to GD+ HVO by the NEP UK fleet is part of a larger commitment to combat global climate change and achieving carbon net zero/carbon neutrality by 2030, the company said. 

GD+ HVO is a hydrogenated vegetable oil that is an ultra-low emission sustainable alternative ‘drop in’ fuel that requires no vehicle modifications for diesel engines. GD+ HVO is made from 100% waste organic matter such as used cooking oils and fats and other Agri waste.  By moving its fleet of trucks to using GD+ HVO, NEP is looking to reduce its greenhouse gasses related to transport by 95% and improve local air quality by reducing tailpipe emissions by up to 85%.

“NEP UK is committed to sustainable productions and minimizing our environmental impact as we move towards becoming carbon neutral by 2030,” explained Simon Moorhead, managing director, NEP UK Broadcast Services. “Switching our fleet to be powered by GD+ HVO is one of the key initiatives we have committed to in the UK to support NEP’s global ‘Project Earth’ environmental sustainability initiative. We have agreed to responsible business targets that place sustainability at the heart of our operations and business. We believe that doing business that is right for the earth is the right thing to do.” 

In addition to offering lower emissions compared to conventional fuels, biofuels are also an effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. While moving to Biofuel does not completely reduce emissions to net zero, NEP UK will also offset any remaining emissions through a carbon offsetting program.

As part of the company's green initiatives, all of NEP UK’s Mercedes Actros units are fitted with predictive powertrain control (PPC) which monitors the vehicle’s kinetic energy to save fuel consumption. NEP vehicles are also fitted with wind deflectors to improve fuel economy by as much as 8%, which is also great for the environment. With the assistance of Mercedes Benz driver training, this has created fuel-efficient driving patterns and sustainable, long-term savings, the company said. 

The move is part of larger NEP UK Project Earth Sustainability Initiatives that include:

• Renewable energy: Following successful trials on major sporting events in 2021, NEP UK has switched from using single use batteries for its RF audio equipment to rechargeable battery units. This switch means that the company no longer wastes hundreds of partly used Lithium batteries and ensures that we always have a ready supply of fully monitored and recharged power cells for our rechargeable batteries.
• Single Use Plastic (SUP) Free: NEP UK is committed to eliminating the use of Single Use Plastics during a broadcast or production. A central water station is available on site for crew where they can replenish their refillable bottle / flasks. Alternatively aluminum cans are provided, which are easily recyclable. NEP has supplied its own branded water bottles for employees removing all plastic cups from offices and locations.
• Waste Management: Recycling bins are supplied on site, to enable the small amount of waste NEP produces to be recycled. Significantly the volume and types of waste generated on location have been reduced since the removal of single use plastic bottles and the removal of paper cups for hot drinks. PVC tape to fix any cabling has also been replaced by reusable Velcro straps to minimize any waste from the game.
• Travel: NEP is tracking the miles traveled, fuel consumed, and emissions produced by broadcast sports production. This is data that clients require when completing a carbon footprint or carbon action plan for albert – the screen industry organization for environmental sustainability. A hybrid model of working has meant that NEP is reducing its carbon footprint at head office and all sporting events.
• Carbon Offsetting Scheme: NEP UK is working with both Carbon Footprint and albert on its Carbon Offsetting Scheme. Whilst NEP UK is committed to reducing its carbon footprint across its operations, a Carbon Offsetting program is a proactive way to help tackle Climate Change and care for developing communities and biodiversity by becoming carbon neutral.
• Albert Supplier: NEP UK is an official accredited albert Supplier. NEP UK also works with its clients to track a production’s carbon footprint and supports productions undertaking a carbon action plan as part of an industry-recognized albert certification scheme, which rewards productions who have taken active steps to reduce their production’s carbon footprint.

Globally, NEP is committed to delivering sustainable productions and environmental responsibility. In 2019 NEP launched its global NEP Project Earth framework and priorities, to help its businesses worldwide focus on local environmental sustainability and responsibility.

PITTSBURGH—Barbara Ford Grant has been appointed president of NEP Group’s newly formed NEP Prysm Stages business unit, the company said.

Part of NEP Virtual Studios, NEP Prysm Stages was launched in late 2021 to support the company’s growing global network of permanent stages designed for film and TV.

Ford Grant joins NEP from arts and entertainment company Meow Wolf where she served as CTO, overseeing its mixed-reality platform and IT divisions. She previously served as senior vice president of digital production services at HBO where she oversaw studio production and post-production operations and growth and next-gen technologies. Prior to that, she worked at entertainment companies Digital Domain, Sony Pictures Imageworks and DreamWorks Animation with credits including “Game of Thrones,” “Maleficent,” “Alice In Wonderland” and the “Shrek” franchise.

The newly appointed NEP Prysm Stages president currently serves as the chair of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is a member of the Technology Committee of the Visual Effects Society and recently worked as a strategy consultant to MovieLabs.

“We are excited to welcome Barbara to NEP Prysm Stages,” said Cliff Plumer, global president of NEP Virtual Studios. “We’re seeing another key inflection point in the entertainment industry where creative and technology changes – like virtual production – are revolutionizing the filmmaking process. Having been on both sides of the creative and technical processes, Barbara is excellent at building solutions that empower artists and storytelling, making her a perfect fit for NEP as we embark on leading our clients and the industry into the future.”

NEP’s virtual production capabilities, including in-camera visual effects (ICVFX), enable directors and creative teams to see an entire scene complete with visual effects and CG enhancements live on set and to restage, revise digital sets, make lighting changes and adjust camera angles on the spot.

In November 2021, NEP announced its first Prysm Stage at Trilith Studios in Atlanta. The stage is one of the world’s largest virtual production facilities, featuring a fully enclosed 80- x 90- x 26-foot virtual production volume in an 18,000-square-foot purpose-built soundstage.

“I am honored to join this world-class team and have the opportunity to lead NEP Prysm Stages at such an exciting time for the company and the burgeoning virtual production industry,” Ford Grant said. “Together with NEP’s team of technology and production experts and global reach, I see NEP Prysm Stages accelerating virtual production access and capabilities across the globe.”

More information is available on the company’s website. 

SYDNEY—NEP Australia has announced plans for its second generation Andrews Hub, which will be capable of supporting all-4K HDR broadcasts through the largest set of facilities worldwide built for Tier 1 live sports coverage. 

“In 2017 when we launched the Andrews Hub we went to the moon and back in every centralized IP  broadcast each day,” said Soames Treffry, president of NEP Australia, New Zealand & Japan. “Our second-generation Andrews Hub is a story of continued investment and innovation in how we’ve built  the largest-scale, 4K, centralized production complex on the planet.”

“Tier 1 sports broadcasting is in our DNA, and it has driven the development of our own control system,  ‘TFC’, and our ‘anyone, anywhere’ philosophy,” he continued. “And with the launch of the ‘hybrid grip’ trailer, we’ll be reducing our onsite footprint even further, making our services more sustainable again.”

First opened in 2017, the Andrews Hub is part of NEP’s growing network of centralized production centers and a global production ecosystem. With its main facilities located in Sydney and Melbourne, and satellite locations, or “spokes”, in Adelaide and Brisbane, the Andrews Hub has supported  numerous clients in producing shows across continents, often thousands of kilometers away from  where the match or live event is taking place – even across the Pacific Ocean. 

As part of its expansion, NEP will build four new control rooms and upgrade its Network Operations Centers to meet increased demand. Work areas for shading and HDR grading of footage before it goes  on air will be added, as well as new “mini” studios and commentary suites for on-screen, off-tube  commentary. 

Other advancements include: 

• Expanded state-of-the-art facilities using 100% IP, scalable technology, designed to have the lowest possible impact on the environment. 
• The introduction of the “hybrid grip,” a new, all-in-one-style tender/grip trailer with on-board  streaming technology built in and ready to hit the road. The single trailer design will include all  automated workflows that have made the Andrews Hub so successful, but in a much smaller  footprint. As a single trailer only, travel and logistics to move equipment across such a large  country becomes more efficient and minimises the carbon footprint for each project. 
• NEP will also deploy a new fully integrated and powerful enterprise resource planning (ERP) package to its broadcast control and orchestration platform, making planning and scheduling  more efficient and seamless, and enabling more efficient utilisation of equipment across country  borders or in different regions. 

“We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of projects we’ve covered through the Andrews Hub due to  COVID-19,” said Marc Segar, NEP’s vice president of Enterprise Architecture. “While we were able to add  temporary control rooms and remote location ‘spokes’ in Brisbane and Adelaide to get us to where we  are today, building the next-generation Andrews Hub facilities in Sydney and Melbourne will further  enable us to meet just about any production challenge or configuration for our clients. It’s incredible how far we’ve come over the last four years and the future is very bright for live  broadcast and centralized production. Fans want to watch sport perhaps more now than before the  pandemic, and we are so proud to be a part of delivering that experience to them.” 

More information about NEP Australia and the Andrews Hub is available at www.nepgroup.com.au. 

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has launched two new production centers, the NEP Production Center–Los Angeles and NEP Production Center–New York.

The new facilities, which are part of the company’s strategy of being a global leader in centralized production, are already online. They join the NEP production ecosystem of NEP’s VISTA Worldlink production center in Miami and other facilities in London, Oslo, Zurich, Hilversum, Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne.

The company also announced that NEP Group's global production ecosystem will add a Dallas-based datacenter in 2022, providing  a backbone network to production centers and remote operator facilities in the U.S. Additional  NEP and client production centers will be launched across the U.S., Europe, Middle East and  Asia, enabling faster deployment of new technologies across multiple geographies. 

The NEP Production Center–Los Angeles and NEP Production Center–New York, are designed to be innovative, flexible, and scalable facilities providing clients with more production options to  create and tell their stories, NEP said. 

They are also designed to help clients better utilize their  top talent and crews by giving them centrally located facilities to use, like those in Los Angeles  and New York. Such facilities, NEP said, will increase production value and produce savings in travel and expenses while reducing a production’s carbon footprint. 

“Our vision is to provide solutions anywhere, any time, and in any way our client’s team wants to  work,” said Mike Werteen, global president, NEP Broadcast Services. “So, whether you are working from an enabled mobile unit on location, in a studio, in one of our production centers, at your facility or even from home, you can be connected to our Global Centralized Production Platform with access to the latest technology housed in our data centers, all managed, monitored and controlled by one unified system.”

“Our goal is to take what we are already doing with mobile units and studios and expand the  possibilities for how and where our clients can work, increase efficiency for them while offering  them the latest technology and software solutions,” he added.  

More information on NEP’s plans for Centralized  Production is available at NEPGroup.com. 

THAMES DITTON, England—NEP UK has acquired multiple Imagine Communications Selenio Network Processor (SNP) appliances and is installing them in four of its largest outside broadcast trucks to provide a seamless, automated workflow for delivering 4K, UHD and HD with standard and high dynamic range (SDR and HDR).

“We have adopted the use of the SNP as a high-density signal conversion engine,” said Chris Cannon, director of technical operations at NEP UK. “Given the tight confines of an outside broadcast truck, we really appreciate we can get eight UHD conversion channels in just 1 RU, and that include signal format conversion as well as SDR-HDR conversion—the latter through the built-in conversion pipeline or through customer-defined LUTs.”

“We set and forget the SNPs. They perform well, take up little rack space, consume less power and deliver the full variety of HD, UHD, SDR and HDR outputs we need,” he said.

The SNP is a software-defined IP and SDI signal processing device. Each 1RU device has four independent processing blocks. Each block can adopt personalities defined by the software. Applications are available on individual licenses, so users can define the exact function they require and reconfigure the SNP as tasks demand. This makes them particularly well-suited to outside broadcast production, Imagine Communications said.

NEP UK ordered a mix of licenses for signal format conversion, including HD, 3G and 4K as well as dynamic range conversion between SDR, HLG, PQ and Slog3, it said. 

More information is available on the company’s website.

PITTSBURGH—ITV Studios turned to technology partner NEP Group for end-to-end broadcast solutions to help it remotely produce editions of its hit reality series “Love Island”—one each for the U.K., the United States and Australia—directed in large measure by the realities of the pandemic.

NEP and ITV Studios navigated a slew of logistical demands for the fully remote production of “Love Island U.K.” With only three engineers and a handful of crew members on site with the contestants in Mallorca, Spain, the production team managed the entire production from the new NEP Production Centre at Gray’s Inn Road in London. 

Using NEP Connect’s Anylive network from London to manage robotic cameras in Mallorca, ITV directors operated as if they were actually at the villa where the show was set. NEP Connect also provided 64 video feeds to the London facility where a crew of 75 people produced the show from over a thousand miles away.

“Remote Editing and Short-Term Event (Sport) remote production is becoming quite common, however, in this instance we required a system design that would give us resilience and a 24/7 operation for over 60 days. NEP Group looked after the remote OB element, connectivity and offered us the ability to work out of a central London facility,” said Steve Kruger, head of technology and entertainment at ITV Studios. 

“We have always had a great relationship with NEP," he added. "They have worked on the show since the franchise was rebooted in 2015 and always produced the best end-to-end solution for us. This year was no exception. We were up against an extremely tough challenge, and they stepped up, delivering something truly innovative.” 

Between the season debut in early July and the season finale in late August, ITV successfully broadcast 58 episodes in a completely remote environment. Each episode turned around seamlessly to air just 30 hours after the action happened.

While Season 7 aired in the U.K., “Love Island USA” Season 3 was getting started in Hawaii. ITV America and NEP previously had worked together on Seasons 1 and 2 in Fiji and Las Vegas, but the third season required a new framework. 

Adequate space for crew and setup were hard to come by in Hawaii so ITV America partnered with NEP’s subsidiary brand, Bexel, standing up a main control room gallery off site at the Grand Naniloa Hotel on the east side of the Big Island, about 20 miles away from the set. The tech base was set up about 2,500 feet from the main set, two miles away from the Casa Amore set. Transmission and editing were located 3,000 miles away at The Switch’s facility in Burbank, Calif. The show had only an 18-hour editing window.  

While not as distant as the U.K. production, the U.S. edition, which wrapped in mid-August, used 11 manned broadcast camera chains and 105 robotic and POV cameras. ITV America also housed logging facilities as far away as Sydney.

The U.S. team ultimately delivered over 50 hours of content to three different networks during the six-week shooting period.

Production of the show is just beginning in Australia. NEP has created a more traditional production setup for the ITV Studios team in Federal, Northern NSW, providing a broadcast compound on location with the entire production team on site with show contestants.  

NEP senior vice president of the Global Product Team Casper Choffat will deliver the opening keynote, Nov. 15 at 11:05 a.m. EST, during the TV Tech Summit. The event has opened online registration.

More information about NEP Group is available on its website.

PITTSBURGH—In a notable example of the growing interest in virtual production services, the NEP Group has launched a new virtual production business, NEP Virtual Studios and has acquired the Prysm Collective, Lux Machina and Halon Entertainment. 

The acquisitions will provide NEP with a group of experts and world-class talent to jumpstart its virtual production efforts.

These experts include entertainment industry veteran Cliff Plumer from Prysm Collective, who will lead the division, and Jeff Ruggels who will be senior vice president of finance and operations. 

Phil Galler and Zach Alexander will serve as co-presidents of the Lux Machina NEP Business Unit.  

Daniel Gregoire has been named executive creative director and Chris Ferriter will become the president of the Halon NEP Business Unit.

“The vision for NEP Virtual Studios is the same as we have for our Broadcast Services and Live Events businesses: to be the world leader in helping clients and creators bring their content to life,” said Brian Sullivan, CEO, NEP Group. “When we first started talking to Prysm Collective we were amazed at how closely they were aligned with one of NEP’s newest strategic objectives of building out the leading global virtual production business. It was clear that joining forces would accelerate the path forward for NEP, Prysm, Lux Machina and Halon together.”

Sullivan also explained that “we’ve worked closely with many of the people in the new group before and know just how good they are. Having Cliff and the teams from Lux Machina and Halon on board adds some of the most experienced talent in the business to our existing world-class people, leading this charge into the future.”

Plumer, who will report to Sullivan, has more than 30 years of experience on the cutting edge of entertainment technology. He has served as CEO of visual effects studio Digital Domain, and as CTO of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. Plumer also served as the President of Jaunt Studios and CEO of THE VOID and has contributed to more than 100 Hollywood feature films and television series, including the Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Transformers franchises.

“I was looking for a partner to help scale the vision for Prysm Collective, and could not have found a more ideal match than NEP,” Plumer said. “One of the biggest hurdles to accelerating growth in the virtual production sector is that demand, both for stages and the hardware required to build them, is far exceeding supply, and joining forces with NEP gives us immediate access to a massive footprint and one of the strongest global production teams and set of resources in the industry.”

Prysm Collective, Lux Machina, Halon Entertainment and NEP all share significant experience with Unreal Engine integration, the companies said. 

Prysm Collective is an Epic MegaGrant recipient for development of virtual production cloud workflows; Lux Machina has built multiple LED stages for Epic Games, consulting closely with Unreal Engine developers on new virtual production features; Halon is one of the earliest adopters of Unreal Engine for real-time film and television content creation; and NEP has been using Unreal Engine to service broadcast clients with real-time graphics for several years.

Lux Machina is a leader in developing and engineering technical video solutions for film and TV, broadcast, live events and permanent installations, NEP said. They specialize in virtual production, in-camera visual effects, display technologies and creative screen control solutions. Lux Machina is known for its pioneering work facilitating virtual production workflows and stage buildouts for “The Mandalorian: Season 1,” “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” The Oscars, The Emmys, League of Legends World Championship 2020 and many more projects across feature film, television, live events, fashion shows, and eSports.

“Since building the earliest LED stages that drove widespread industry adoption of virtual production in entertainment, we have been swimming upstream to meet the demand for the talent and technology that our team delivers in this space,” Galler explained. “This deal will allow us to scale globally and innovate new software and solutions to streamline virtual production with the industry’s most influential players by our side. We have worked with NEP for many years and are excited to have access to their breadth of technical and creative resources,” 

Halon Entertainment is a full-service visualization company offering animation, design services, virtual art department, real-time solutions, and robust project management systems to help clients bring their creative visions to screen. Working with major content owners, creators and VFX houses, Halon has contributed real time visualization to productions such as “The Mandalorian: Season 1,” “The Batman, Suicide Squad” and many other game, film and television productions. 

“As one of the first creative companies to specialize in visualization for film, tv and games, we were well-positioned to make the leap into real time workflows,” explained Gregoire. “Our work in virtual production and providing virtual art department services has exploded in the past two years. Partnering with Lux, Prysm, and joining the NEP family is incredibly exciting and we look forward to helping define how the next generation of content creation will evolve.”

LEXINGTON, Mass.—NEP has selected Signiant Media Shuttle to accelerate file-based operations across its fleet of OB trucks, studios and flypacks, the company said today.

Media Shuttle will enable NEP clients to move media assets and associated metadata quickly and easily to and from venues. The solution will offer NEP customers fast, secure content exchange globally to any size production via any IP network without additional hardware on the truck, it said.

Sports workflows in recent years have become more complex, and the data payloads involved have grown dramatically. As more cameras are added with higher resolution, file sizes grow. There is also a larger number of distribution partners in the mix.

As a result, optimizing file flow to and from the venue before, during and after a live event is a necessity. Prior to a game, trucks must be loaded with graphics and pre-recorded segments. After the event, there is a rush to ensure all valuable content is safely sent home, the company said.

However, it is during the event that NEP clients and production partners may reap the greatest rewards from the new toolset, it said.

With Media Shuttle it will be easy for NEP to move content off its trucks fast during an event and ingest it to the desired storage or cloud-based platform, including NEP’s own Mediabank media asset management platform. Once in Mediabank, content can be distributed to global partners quickly, it said.

This content flow model aligns well with the live production trends that surfaced during the pandemic in which fewer people were on-site, the company said.

Media Shuttle offers NEP several advantages, including fast, secure, reliable movement of any size file over any IP network; no requirement for additional hardware on production trucks; preservation of structural metadata, including real-time time code, file names and the ability to add descriptive metadata on the fly; movement of content into and out of any type of storage; integration with NEP’s platform for virtual editing and asset management; web-based administration; and modern APIs for easy integration with Media Shuttle and other systems.

More information is available on the company’s website.

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has unveiled a new mobile unit, the Supershooter 5, a 1080p-ready and 4K-capable fully IP mobile unit. 

The Supershooter 5 is the first truck from NEP to feature its new proprietary broadcast control and monitoring system that assists with the configuration and connection of on-site and remote facilities.

“With our broadcast control system, we can really harness the power of this technology while reducing complexity and speeding up the configuration process. It is really transformative and will help us bridge the gap between existing and future technologies,” said Glen Levine, president of NEP’s U.S. Broadcast Services Group.

In addition, Andrew Jordan, NEP’s global CTO, says that the new broadcast control system will help bring NEP’s mobile units, flypacks, studios and centralized production facilities onto the same platform.

Supershooter 5 is a single-truck unit that offers a flexible support truck when additional production space is needed. It is equipped with Grass Valley’s Kayenne X-Frame switcher, a Calrec Apollo audio console, Sony HDC-3500 cameras and EVS XT VIA servers.

NEP has already put the Supershooter 5 out into the field, as it was used for The Masters golf tournament in April.

For more information, visit NEP’s website. 

HILVERSUM, The Netherlands—NEP The Netherlands has completed an acquisition for 100% of Stoneroos, a technology firm based in the Netherlands. Stoneroos is immediately joining NEP The Netherlands.

Stoneroos was founded in 2001 by Annelies Kaptein and offers customers interactive TV apps and content discovery services designed to improve TV experiences through comprehensive metadata and enriched content.

Kaptein says, in addition to adding its expertise to NEP, Stoneroos wants to extend its IT services and offer new digital TV and video services to customers.

Stoneroos will continue to operate under its own name for the time being, with its staff of 18 staying in place. At an as yet undetermined time, it will change its name to NEP Media Solutions; the Stoneroos name and branding will disappear entirely.

“With this acquisition, we can strengthen our OTT proposition even more, and we can also extend our team of developers. We therefore can continue to grow our business, build on a strong(er) team and also pursue our international ambitions,” said Ralf van Vegten, managing director, NEP The Netherlands.

LONDON—NEP Group has cut the ribbon on a new production center in the heart of London at 200 Gray’s Inn Road. NEP bills the new production center as adaptable to almost any type of broadcast or streaming production.

The production center features three production control rooms, two sound control rooms, three multifunctional production spaces, nine flexible control rooms, a flexible green screen studio that can use NEP’s virtual studio technology and a temporary equipment room.

“This facility was designed, implicitly, in a way that allows us to mold it to meet the needs of any production, even as they change day-to-day,” said Steve Jenkins, president, NEP UK & Ireland. “But perhaps most important is the capability and power of the infrastructure backing it up.”

The London production center is integrated into NEP’s global network of data centers and production facilities for full access to resources and media solutions around the world, per Jenkins.

The facility features 100Gb connections, which helps it provide fully managed connectivity. Using fiber, BT Tower or satellite, the facility can link to any location in the U.K. and is permanently connected to more than 250 event venues in the U.K. and Ireland. It can also connect to a growing number across Europe and North America. Other connectivity assets include SNG’s, hybrid satellite/fiber vehicles, satellite flyaway systems and more.

For more information, visit the NEP Group website. 

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group has acquired VISTA Worldlink, a provider of centralized broadcast technology. The deal is part of NEP’s strategy to boost its centralized production offerings across the U.S. and the world.

VISTA was founded in 1988 by Roy Liemer. The company provides end-to-end workflows, transmission and connectivity, and packaged traditional broadcast production systems to customers in sports, entertainment, news, corporate and other industries. VISTA operates out of its facility in South Florida.

In 2017, VISTA pivoted to focus more on centralized broadcast technology, according to Joshua Liemer, president of VISTA.

This acquisition is part of NEP’s strategy to meet new broadcast industry trends, including the need and desire for remote workflows, with a greater focus on centralized production. NEP has already launched Centralized Production “hubs” in Australia, the Netherlands and Norway, additional capabilities in Switzerland and the U.K., as well as a “mini hub” in Washington, D.C. NEP says that combining with VISTA will allow it to create a large-scale, end-to-end Centralized Production solution in the U.S. and further expand across the globe.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We’re excited for VISTA to join NEP—the company and team are an incredible fit for many reasons,” said Brian Sullivan, NEP CEO. “Culturally our companies are very much alike—innovative, client-focused and forward-looking—and the addition of VISTA’s experience builds on our existing talent and expertise in Centralized Production and Integrated Services to build for the future. This forms a strong foundation for us to further expand our services across the US and around the globe.”

Following a transition period, VISTA will officially become part of NEP’s U.S. Broadcast Services business under co-presidents Glen Levine and Howie Rosenthal. Joshua Liemer will continue to serve as president of VISTA and Roy Liemer will stay on in his advisory role. The company will continue to operate out of South Florida.

“I’ve been in this business for 40 years and I’ve seen it go through a lot of changes,” said Roy Liemer, Founder of VISTA. “I’m proud of our employees and all they’ve accomplished at VISTA. I’m happy to know they will have even more opportunities as part of NEP to build a great career in our industry like I have.”

For more information, visit www.nepgroup.com.  

OSLO, Norway—NEP recently selected Nevion to provide equipment and services as part of an update to the Norwegian DTT network’s headend and regionalization.

At the heart of this was Nevion’s CP524 TS Adapter, which provides input switching (based on SMPTE ST 2022-7), multiplexing, DVB-T adaptation (MIP insertion), IP to ASI conversion and monitoring (TR 101 290 priority 1). It also provides switching with relay protection.

The Nevion gear takes DTT’s main multiplexed input feed from two different sources, selects and creates the regional feeds, then forwards them over fiber to 10 different regions for transmission. The CP524’s redundancy helps ensure transmission is not compromised in the event any part of the flow is disrupted.

“The Nevion CP524 in particular provides a perfect solution for Transport Stream processing for regionalization with multiple SFN adapters in a single unit. We look forward to continue delivering DTT in Norway with the help of Nevion’s solutions”, says Janis Jansons, director, Technology & Operations, Media Services at NEP Norway.

For more information, visit www.nevion.com.  

PITTSBURGH—Over the past several months, NEP, the television industry’s largest mobile production company, announced new leadership with the appointment of Brian Sullivan as the company’s new CEO and Jeff Hughes as its new COO for NEP’s global business operations. 

Sullivan comes to NEP after having served in executive leadership roles at Fox Networks Group, SKY Deutschland AG, Sky UK and most recently at McKinsey & Co., where he has served as senior advisor to the Consumer, Tech & Media teams. Hughes comes to NEP after serving as president and COO for Fox Networks’ Digital Consumer Group. Prior to his role at Fox, Hughes was CEO of Omnifone, a B2B operator of music services in more than 35 countries and served as a media consultant in Europe before moving to BskyB as CTO (later renamed Sky UK).

TV Technology recently talked with Sullivan and Hughes about their new roles at the company.  

TV TECHNOLOGY: Congratulations Brian and Jeff on your new positions. I’m going to play the role of the recruiter in my first question… based on your backgrounds, how do you plan to approach your new positions?  

Brian Sullivan: The thing that attracted me was the increasing pace of change and innovation in the industry, which was present even before the pandemic, but has certainly accelerated. This evolution in the way we pull together broadcasts and live events—where you're able to take advantage of the change and really steer the business and drive innovation to levels we haven't seen before—is truly exciting.

I'm no prognosticator and I’m certainly not a health expert, but one thing I'm very, very confident about is that much of the change the world is experiencing now is going to continue once we come out of the pandemic. And it's those companies that can lean into innovation right now and explore new ways of delivering services that are going to be the most successful. I've been lucky enough to be involved in similar “big change” moments, both in terms of my time at Sky and at Fox, and I've seen what you can do if you have the right people, the right resources and the right vision for what you want to get done, and I think we're perfectly set up for that. 

So that's what got me excited about the job. Beforehand I wasn't even sure I was going to go back to full-time employment. After I left Fox, I was doing a lot of work with McKinsey and was really enjoying that. But this opportunity was kind of right in my “sweet spot” and positioned very, very well. So, I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Jeff Hughes: The most important thing that really attracted me to the new position is the team that's there now already understands their customers very, very well. But they're hungry for change, and that was part of my evaluation. And like Brian, I enjoy change. I've never had a job that wasn't being disrupted by either technology or events around the industry. 

TVT: Brian, I know you just joined the company, but what’s your impression of how NEP has weathered the events of the past six months?

BS: I've actually been in conversations with Carlyle (NEP’s private equity partner) since last March, and as part of that process, I was able to get involved in a couple of the strategic reviews that were already underway. So, I know the company a little better than you would expect from somebody who's just starting their third week on the job.

Listen, it's been hard on everybody—not just the business aspect but there’s also the personal side. We have over 4,000 employees and their lives have been just as upended. I think we have been very, very lucky in that the company was able to pivot very quickly into the changing customer needs and demands.

For example, our Broadcast Services business right now is running at close to 80% of what it was before the pandemic. Our live events business has almost reinvented itself. Whereas it used to be big concerts like Coachella or Stagecoach or giant events like NAB or CES or things of that nature, many of those events and most of the clients have pivoted to the virtual world. We're kind of uniquely situated for that in that we have the one side of the company that does live broadcast better than anybody else, but we also have this other side that is the leader in live events. The pandemic has almost driven an overlap of those two worlds, which means we have the right people to be able to execute for our customers as the requirements blend across each other. 

So, while the live events business has been more directly impacted by the pandemic, there's no doubt about that, it's actually having one of its best last couple months because once companies figured out that they could still connect with customers on a virtual basis, they came to us.

JH: What I see is that the trends that we already knew were happening were accelerated by the pandemic. The trends did not really change; broadcast and live events were already moving into more technically advanced solutions and centralized production, just at a slower pace. 

[The pandemic] also forced us to acknowledge the similarity between the two sides of our business. From what I hear, it's really brought our people closer and to begin to solve problems together more so than in the past. I think if you know what it was going to look like in three years, we just kind of compressed that down to a six-month period. Companies that embrace change come out of things like this better than they went into them. 

There'll be stumbles, of course, there are always stumbles with change. But this situation has actually just forced us down a path more quickly than we were already headed, and it's the right path to go down. 

BS: We're backed by a large private equity company and happen to be held in a long fund, as opposed to a more traditional short position, which means that our shareholders are absolutely interested in us leaning into these times right now. Clearly the world is changing and our markets are changing, and that’s where real opportunities rise. While all companies are struggling on some level, we are fortunate to be in a strong position.  We're actually investing into the business right now so that we can come out of the other side of this at a much faster speed than we came into it.

TVT: How does business look globally right now in terms of production schedule?

BS: It's very different from market to market as you can imagine, because the pandemic is different depending where you go, and the way different countries are dealing with things as well. The U.S. business is back strong and the European business is coming along nicely as well. In Asia, it’s generally been quite good, but some places like Singapore are still shut down, so parts of the business are kind of “lying in hibernation”. As a whole, we're doing a lot better than I think we have a right to expect, considering the circumstances.

TVT: Americans are pretty much restricted from traveling to other parts of the world. How is that impacting your business?

JH: I think it's just a matter of logistics, but the short answer is it creates issues that make moving around harder and we have to plan more. We're going into environments that are bubbles in different countries around the world, but even just moving state to state in the United States is more complicated. 

Things are opening up differently around the globe, there's pent-up demand so they open up quite quickly, and so far we've been able to get the right people in the right place at the right time. We are very busy right now, but it is certainly logistically more challenging.

BS: There's one unexpected side effect from this life of less travel, which is that people are, in many ways, connecting more. I'm sure this is true beyond just our company and the industry, and is probably true in all aspects of life. But we are a global company and as Jeff said, we were running at full speed most of the time before this thing hit. This new level of connectivity has allowed a lot of people who really barely knew each other to connect virtually. I've heard this more and more as I've talked with people across the company, they're actually closer now than they've been in the past. And I think that that's going to suit us well going forward.

TVT: NEP just rolled out its new IP-based production trucks, SuperShooter 4 and SuperShooter 9, right? What’s been the response?

BS: From what I’ve heard from within the company, the rollout went unreasonably well—these things usually have some fits and starts as you're going in, particularly on a new technology base, but these went really smoothly. We're going to be leaning into more and more new ways of providing production solutions for our partners. On the Broadcast Services side, we already have substantial hubs in Australia, the Netherlands and some “mini hubs” around the world, and they have been particularly resilient and successful. So, in addition to continuing to invest in the newest tech across our OB fleet and events equipment, going forward we're also going to be moving further into centralized production and software based solutions.

TVT: Jeff, all too often, we’ll see the term “all-IP” in quotes as if that somehow indicates that it may not be entirely IP-based.  

JH: The industry is in an evolutionary period. And that means “things move from point A to point B.” But you don't “pull a switch to go from point A to point B, that doesn't happen. It’s incremental, not replacement. And it’s a process that's gradual; it’s the pace that we’re accelerating. So I can see why they may put it in quotes because it is a journey as much as it is a destination. The whole industry is moving to IP-based production, and that will affect every part of the value chain throughout the entire process—from capture all the way to viewing—but it doesn't necessarily all happen at the exact same moment.

I’ve just joined so I didn't really get the first-hand look at the complexities of building the trucks themselves, although I heard there were quite a few beaming faces as it was rolled out and had no issues. I think like any piece of technology, software is the most complex component—it's got more moving pieces than almost any machine ever built. So, when you put that all together and you don't have issues, everyone is quite rightly very happy... unfortunately, sometimes that's the exception rather than the rule. And when you're dealing with customers like we have, you have to make it work, and it has to work right away. 

So I think that the shorter answer is we're accelerating rapidly into that world, and we're going to see more and more of that, whether it's in a “hub and spoke” model or an IP-based truck model or cloud-based production. 

TVT: The pandemic has forced all major sports to postpone their seasons. Now they’re all playing at once. What impact has that had on your business?

BS: We had a lot of mobile units and trucks within the US NEP arsenal active this past weekend. And there were probably 10 other big sporting events around the world that were happening at the same time. We’re a big, global company so we can pull from a wide variety of resources, so while it’s busy, it’s not a problem for us.  Everyone wants to be part of the solution, to bring entertainment and joy back to the fans of the world. It’s exciting.

It's been a massive re-ramp-up, in a quite a short period of time. And in some ways I think that’s probably better than the normal path because everybody had been sitting around for so long. In those first three months—that felt like probably 12, 24 or 36 months—they just wanted to get out there and do their jobs. 

TVT: What kind of demand are you seeing for the new IP trucks? Is there any hesitancy because it’s so new?  

BS: I don't know if I call it “hesitant.” Clients were already talking about not just IP-based delivery but also centralized production and hubs before the pandemic began, they just tended to take it at a more considered pace. What the pandemic has done is accelerate both the deployment of these concepts and, as a result, the confidence in their capabilities. 

I’ll give you a really good example from over in the U.K. Remember both Jeff and I worked for Sky in our past, so we’re probably a bit biased. When the Premier League returned to action, Sky had to pivot with extreme speed, and do so while adhering to the league’s new criteria and protocols for broadcast production, with absolutely no compromise on quality. 

They had already been working with a more hybrid OB/centralized/remote model for some content beforehand, but now they had to do it on a large scale, very quickly and with their most important content. We were able to work with them to help make this happen, while still delivering a great visual experience for customers, just as you would expect from Sky. So no, I don't think it's really changed; it’s just moving faster. 

And I'm sure that will continue when we come out of all of this, which is exciting, as it opens up a whole new level of potential for deeper and wider sports offerings. It’s why we're taking this time now to actually reposition the company, to build on our leadership in broadcast services and live events so we continue to lead for years to come.

JH: IP has moved from testing to production, that's really all that changed. People were testing, testing, testing, making sure they were comfortable. And then there was no longer any other option. We'd already tested it and it worked really well, because we were already there. I do think it's sped up the adoption, and perhaps maybe the type of sports that we're going to use for coverage. Rather than starting at a lower tier sport, we started in a very high tier sport, but I don't think it changed the level of readiness at all, it just kind of forced it to happen quickly.

TVT: What’s it like shooting in an empty stadium or arena?

BS: It’s changed some aspects, but maybe not as much as you’d think. On one hand, there are some things that are easier, like camera placements. But on the other hand, we’ve had all of these policies and procedures that have rightly been put in place for people’s safety, and that's added a wholly understandable level of complexity. 

I think leagues and broadcasters have been incredibly thoughtful and creative, in an incredibly short period of time. I've seen the “virtual fan” solutions—we are actually one of the companies that help deploy those—and they can be fun. For example, the vast majority of shots in baseball are from the perspective of the pitcher, with the focus on a small section of the stands behind home plate, whereas in other sports, like European football, there are a lot of wide shots, and you're seeing the entirety of the stadium.

In Europe they've covered the stands with tarps that have, in a strange way, focussed your eyes back down on the pitch, so you're probably watching the action more closely. I think that the NHL and the NBA have done a spectacular job staging the arenas. I now watch what's happening on the court or on the ice with far more attention to detail than I did before, and in some ways, I think it's actually more televisual. But as somebody who's been around sports my entire life, it doesn't reach its maximum capability and entertainment value unless you have the fans there. We have to be patient because it has to be safe, but I can't wait ‘til it happens.

TVT: The events of the past seven months have forced a lot of vendors to reassess how they connect with their customers with no NAB Show or IBC Show. How has the lack of trade shows affected how you communicate with your customers?

BS: I don't know if it will have a lasting effect, in part because I think they will be back. Right now, I would say we're probably closer to our customers than we've been in a long time, mostly because they had to modify and adapt and change their plans on such a fluid and frequent basis over the course of the last six months, they basically attached themselves or we attached ourselves to each other's hips and found solutions to things that no one ever anticipated in the past. 

That kind of deep problem-solving partnership—as opposed to just a strict delivery relationship—gets you much, much closer to the customers. I think we'd all love to be at NAB, CES or IBC because you develop friendships over the course of your career with the people that you work with, and on the business side the reality is you can only go so far over Zoom. Some proper, strategic conversations require that face-to-face experience. But we have to all keep safe, so right now we can’t, and that’s ok, it will come back.

As I said, we’re very lucky to be positioned quite well during this moment. While we feel the same short term business impacts as everyone else—and more importantly the same increased personal stress and strain that people have had to endure—we’re fortunate in that we don’t have some of the associated financial stresses you see elsewhere. We certainly have issues like most companies, but we have great people, a lot of flexible resources and a strong balance sheet. And we can invest into these downturns to make ourselves even stronger coming out. I count my blessings that we’re in that position. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The COVID-19 pandemic was a big blow to television production; Los Angeles, the center of the production world, suffered its lowest filming levels on record between April and June. Between keeping socially distant on set and needing to travel to different locations, when—or if—production can return to what it was before is currently unknown.

Some relief to these new production headaches has popped up in the music capital of the U.S. of all places, Nashville. There, NEP Live and Skyway Studios have partnered for the construction and housing of an LED “Smart Stage.”

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

William Shakespeare believed that the entire world was a stage, but the collaboration between NEP Live and Skyway Studios has turned that idea around to make this new stage a way to bring nearly any place in the world into a single location.

Officially opened to clients on June 8, the Smart Stage is housed in Skyway Studio’s Nashville location, a 150,000-square-foot facility that in addition to its sound stages includes amenities like hair and makeup, green rooms and around the clock security. But the centerpiece is the new virtual, high-resolution LED stage.

The stage measures in at 38x20x13-feet with the walls having a resolution of 8272x1408 pixels, while the floor has a resolution of 1932x1008 pixels. There are a total of 13,594,432 pixels active on the set at a single time.

Playing back an image to effectively create the virtual 3D environment is done with a combination of 8K Unreal servers, a Disguise GX2C media server and VX4 media server and Stype Red Spy camera tracking system. Additional components include an NEP Plater Performer server for plate playback and frame accurate capture and logging, while screen mapping and control is done through Barco E2 running native resolution. The studio also features 10 GB of connectivity and multiple fiber optic links to common broadcast partners, including other NEP studios around the world.

“We’ve heard from many of our clients that a stage of this size and this design doesn’t exist anywhere else in the U.S.,” said Jason Newman, business executive, Creative Technologies, at NEP. “Even in L.A., outside the volume for ‘The Mandalorian’ or something along those lines built for a tentpole project, there’s not another stage that has the full surround with the capability that we’ve got here.”

Even when compared to the virtual production set that “The Mandalorian” has made famous, Newman said that the only real difference is the layout and the size; the hardware driving the technology and the LED displays are essentially the same, just adapted into a somewhat smaller package.

In addition to the technical and physical collaboration between NEP and Skyway, a third-party has helped bring the actual environments to the stage. Lightborne Communications was tasked with creating the video content and 3D graphics.

“Working alongside NEP and Skyway Studios has been an incredible opportunity to pair cutting-edge technology and a top-of-the-line studio facility with Lightborne’s renowned content creation abilities,” said Scott Durban, president of Lightborne. “Using Unreal Engine to create content for this space draws on all of our capabilities and combines them into a new kind of alchemy that has seemingly endless conceptual, narrative and visual potential.”

LIVE ON STAGE

Since the Smart Stage launched in June, it has been used for a number of different kinds of productions. With it being located in Nashville, one type has been for music performances serving as a potential replacement for delayed or cancelled tours that impact not only artists and their fans, but the production crews that help produce the shows. The stage can also be used to produce content or entire presentations for corporations, as well as high-end TV or film production.

“The opportunities are endless,” said Bill Lafontaine, chief marketing officer at Skyway Studios, who emphasized their excitement over what the partnership with NEP has brought to the table.

However, you don’t need to be putting on a concert to utilize this virtual stage technology at Skyway. The studio and NEP also crafted a smaller stage that Skyway expects to be an option for local sports broadcasters (Nashville is home to the NHL’s Predators, the MLS’ Nashville FC and the NFL’s Tennessee Titans). Regional broadcasters covering these teams could do studio shoots for pre-game, halftime and post-game coverage, Lafontaine believes.

While still in its early days, Skyway is excited about the prospects of what the Smart Stage has to offer. According to the studio’s owner and CEO, Julie Stadler, they might install more Smart Stages if the current installation proves successful.

THE EVOLUTION OF PRODUCTION

As mentioned earlier, nearly everything surrounding production is impacted by COVID-19 right now. Smart Stage contributes to the potential solution by eliminating the need for traveling to different locations or having an unsafe number of people in a single environment. This was particularly helpful as Tennessee’s COVID-19 restrictions allowed for production to return sooner than in places like New York, or Los Angeles, where NEP has a similar virtual stage setup.

Still, timing played a key factor in all of this coming together.

“One of the key things that people mostly don’t realize is that, say COVID had hit us five or six years ago, the infrastructure and the bandwidth within the world did not exist at that time to be able to support what the technology can do today,” said Andy Gerber, account and project manager for NEP Live. Even so, the pandemic did not cause a shift in the ways production operates, but rather an acceleration.

“We were heading down this road with this technology,” Gerber continued.

Part of the challenge in doing this now, he said, is that many of the technologies needed to pull everything off are working together for the first time and figuring out how to properly collaborate. “Once everything stopped, it was like now we have time to focus on things that were always on the back burner. We always knew we would get there, but now we are accelerated to having to figure it out. It’s been challenging but it’s been very fun and I would also say it’s been gratifying to get to where we are.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—NEP Group has partnered with Skyway Studios on the installation of what it says is the first general-production LED “smart stage” for local and national broadcasts and live events.

The NEP-Skyway smart stage uses ultra high-resolution LED technology to make a traditional flat-wall stage into a true 3D environment using a virtual backdrop. The stage measures in at 38x20x14 feet and is designed to accommodate concerts, news and other broadcast or event productions.

The smart stage is part of a more than 150,000-square-foot facility that opened last week and offers four full-size sound stages and virtual insert stages. Additional features for using the smart stage include space to practice social distancing; limited labor needed to install and operate the stage; 24/7 production availability; 24-hour campus security; and full studio amenities, including hair, makeup and executive greenrooms.

The video content and 3D graphics for the smart stage were created by Lightborne Communications.

“Thanks to our partnership with Skyway Studios and the content talents of Lightborne, we can offer a creative, cost-effective option in a virtual, safe environment to our clients,” said Graham Andrews, global president of NEP Live Events. “The visual opportunities and types of productions that can use this facility are almost endless.”

To learn more about the Nashville Smart Stage, contact Andy Gerber at agerber@screenworksnep.com.  

PITTSBURGH—NEP is bringing its production knowledge to the home amid the coronavirus pandemic, announcing the launch of the NEP Home Studio, designed for talent to “go live” during virtual events, live streams or traditional broadcasts.

NEP Home Studio has two ways for clients to create a one-camera studio setup anywhere. The first is Studio-in-a-Box, which includes a remote camera, audio, built-in lighting and return video monitor; it can be operable as soon as it is connected to the internet. The second option is Studio-in-an-App, which provides the same functionality as Studio-in-a-box over a laptop or mobile device.

Able to work anywhere there is an internet connection, these Home Studios connect to NEP on the back-end—i.e. mobile unit, flypack or an NEP HUB—to support production.

NEP, combining its AR technology with the Home Studio, can build a virtual studio that incorporates talent live on-site with talent working remotely.

NEP offers the replay, audio mixing, video mixing, graphics and editing centrally. These are currently in the testing phase, but some are available immediately with Home Client technology used by NEP’s Virtualized Editing platform.

For more information, visit www.nepgroup.com.  

PITTSBURGH—NEP Group, which serves as a technical production partner for many live sporting events around the world, recently added the new MPA1-MIX MADI-V audio monitor from TSL Products into its fleet of OB trucks to improve operator workflow.

The MPA1-MIX-V range of audio monitors, based on the MPA1-MIX series, was designed specifically for live production. It features a redesigned user interface that is available in SDI, Dante/AES67, MADI, AES and analog input formats. The addition of the V variant gives customers the ability to choose the interface that suits their needs.

NEP Group currently has MPA1-MIX-V installed in two of its trucks and is expected to utilize the technology for trucks that will be built in the coming year.

PLUS: NEP Adjusts to Coronavirus Lull in Sports Production

According to Michael Naugle, design engineer for NEP’s U.S. Broadcast Services team, the reaction to the new technology has been positive, with operators specifically praising the updated control layout and sound quality.

For more information, visit www.tslproducts.com.  

PITTSBURGH—Word today that the Summer Olympics in Tokyo will be moved to next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic is just the latest in a long list of announced sporting event, season and tournament cancellations or postponements due to the disease. 

Shutting down these events not only leaves fans high and dry, but also impacts the broadcast and cable networks that telecast events and the mobile facilities companies they rely on for remote production. 

One with worldwide reach is NEP. Last week, I conducted a Q&A with Scott Rothenberg, senior vice president of Technology & Asset Management at NEP, about the impact coronavirus is having on the company.

TVTechnology: Tell me about the affect the coronavirus outbreak has had on NEP. 

Scott Rothenberg: Obviously, this is an unprecedented time, and our clients are making some very difficult decisions. The whole industry is upended.

NEP is focused on the well-being of our employees, freelancers and everyone. That is our top priority.

Priority No. 2 is supporting our clients with whatever it is they need—whether that’s been in thinking about different ways to do production or looking towards the future when we get through all of this.

We are confident we will all get through this. We are going to be there. We also are all doing our part to keep NEP financially healthy. That’s where we are.

TVT: What about the crews and freelancers?

SR: It’s definitely difficult on the freelance community. For the most part in the U.S., NEP doesn’t hire freelancers. Our clients are going through that. We have our staff, and we are doing everything we can to work through that. But certainly in other parts of the world, things are handled differently.

TVT: Have you heard any rumblings about when there may be a return to live sports production?

SR: It’s too soon to know, and that is the challenge of it—the uncertainty. We really don’t have any idea.

TVT: What was it like when the leagues and conferences started pulling the plug? It must have been a shock.

SR: It was definitely difficult on everybody. It is all wrapped up together because obviously there is a business impact, but you also have the health and safety concerns. It was definitely a significant time and something none of us have ever experienced before.  

We are focused on keeping our employees as healthy as best we can and following all of the local guidelines and federal CDC guidelines.

TVT: Since the trucks are off the road, are you using this opportunity to do maintenance?

SR: We are still in the evaluation stage, [deciding] what’s going to make sense. There is some maintenance we are going to do. 

We will be looking at the guidelines as far as the number of people together in close quarters. A TV truck doesn’t necessarily lend itself to that [social distancing].

We are also using the time to look at training and skill development for our staff, but we are still working through a lot of that.