Grass Valley Captures the Oscar's Stars

Thomson's Grass Valley equipment was used at the 78th Academy Awards show at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, to capture the live broadcast in HD on ABC. This year's production is the fourth HDTV broadcast of the Oscars.

Denali, a division of mobile production company NEP Entertainment Group, relied on Grass Valley multi-format HD production equipment and systems for its two all-digital mobile units that were on-site for the awards show. More than 20 Grass Valley LDK 6000 mk II Worldcam HD cameras were used throughout the Kodak Theatre along with two Grass Valley Kalypso switchers. Both mobile units also employed several Grass Valley servers, routers, and signal processing and conversion modules.

NEP Supershooter mobile unit number 20 used several Grass Valley LDK 6000 mk II HD cameras and a Kalypso HD switcher for the Academy's official pre-show, "Oscar Countdown 2006." NEP's SS18 truck (with Kalypso HD and Worldcam HD cameras) handled the international feed.

"NEP, Denali and our clients have come to count on the on site engineering support provided by Grass Valley at these high profile events, insuring the production team's creative visions are implemented flawlessly," said George Hoover, senior vice president of engineering at NEP Broadcasting LLC.

In addition, ProQue LLC, a video server facilities company, used five Grass Valley PVS 2000 HD servers and four PDR 300 MPEG SD servers for the live stage show inside the Kodak Theatre.