Rolling Stones fans not lucky enough to attend the band’s sold-out Madison Square Garden gig last month could still catch a live broadcast on HBO, thanks to Game Creek Video. In a departure from its usual turf of sports broadcasting, the mobile production outfit supplied two trucks and all the equipment necessary for producing the concert live to producer Cream Cheese Films.
For the event, Game Creek rolled the Southern Cross, its new 53-foot truck, into New York City, along with its accompanying ��B” unit truck. In addition to its large size, the Southern Cross features a 51-foot expanding area. Among its camera and lens options are seven Sony BVP-900 studio cameras, seven Canon Digi Super 72X9.3 lenses with servo and manual zoom, and five Sony BVP-950 handheld cameras. Southern Cross has 99 monitors, all with their own UMDs, a Grass Valley Kalypso production switcher, and an Image Video tally system.
The truck also boasts a Cheetah serial digital router from PESA, which at 192 x 384, is unusually large. PESA provided a 10-bit DAC output on each of the router’s serial digital outputs and Game Creek decided to add this feature on 288 of the 384 outputs. This allows producers to send out an analog and digital signal at the same time. The Cheetah, along with the Grass Valley Kalypso and Image Video tally system, is connected to the monitor wall. According to Paul Bonar, director of Engineering, Game Creek Video, this adds a tremendous amount of flexibility. “It’s a big programming plus for us,” he said. ��It makes it easy for us to do different shows back to back with a different crew or director.”
The audio side of the truck boasts a Calrec Q2 120-input surround sound console with 60 stereo modules. The audio room also features a PESA Tiger router, which is 144 x 144 stereo and comes with 200 inputs and 200 outputs.
Game Creek recorded the Stones concert on 31 VTRs, mostly Sony DVW-8500s, 21 of which are in the truck. The show was processed in Dolby surround and sent out live via digital satellite, with fiber backup. New England Satellite sent the signal to HBO.
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