NEP to play significant role in HD bowl season coverage

NEP Supershooters will help ABC Sports HD cover two of its high-profile college bowl games with two of its HD-capable mobile production trucks packed. Both HD trucks rely on Grass Valley LDK 6000 mk II WorldCam HD cameras, XtenDD and Kalypso Duo switchers, and Trinix and Concerto Series routing switchers.

NEP will send its 53ft-long SS-19 truck to produce the pre-game show for ABC Sports telecast of The Rose Bowl on Jan. 4, 2006, in Pasadena, CA. The SS-19, which hit the road for the first time in August, carries 10 LDK 6000 mk II WorldCam HD cameras and a Kalypso Duo HD switcher, which was upgraded from a Kalypso SD switcher.

The veteran mobile production company will also send its SS-26 HD truck to Atlanta to cover the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl Dec. 30 and the Nokia Sugar Bowl Jan. 2, 2006. The SS-25 is a 53ft-long production studio on wheels, which carries 22 Grass Valley LDK 6000 mk II WorldCam HD cameras and base stations, as well as an XtenDD 35 switcher with 90 inputs. The truck is based around a Grass Valley Trinix 160x128 HD video router, a Trinix 256x256 SD router and a Concerto 256x256 analog/AES audio router.

The coverage of these bowl games in HDTV is part of a larger initiative by ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD and ABC Sports HD to offer 24 of the 25 post-season college football bowl games in HDTV between Dec. 20, 2005, and Jan. 4, 2006. ESPN’s Bowl Road Trip kicked off on Dec. 20 with the New Orleans Bowl and will continue with the Capital One Bowl Week Dec. 26. It will conclude Jan. 4 with the BCS national championship game on ABC Sports HD from the Rose Bowl.

In addition to the college bowl games, NEP Supershooters’ SS-26, SS-20, SS-18 and Silver production trucks will be onsite at Ford Field in Detroit, MI, to help cover Super Bowl XL on Feb. 5, 2006, in SD and HD. All the trucks are equipped with Grass Valley Kalypso HD switchers, except SS26 which carries a Grass Valley XtenHD switcher. In total these trucks will also bring 64 Grass ValleyLDK 6000 mk II WorldCam HD cameras and eight Grass Valley LDK 6200 Super SloMo cameras, though not all will be used by ABC.

For more information, visit: www.grassvalley.com and http://guardian.nepinc.com.

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