Grass Valley Reprises Role In Academy Awards

Grass Valley helped televise the Academy Awards ceremony for the second time, assisting Pittsburgh-based mobile production company NEP Supershooters and ABC in broadcasting the event live simultaneously in SD and 720p HD. Additionally, ABC's pre-show coverage was broadcast in HD for the first time.

NEP Supershooters operated two HD production units on-site in Los Angeles; NOVA for the Academy pre-show broadcast, while Silver and SS20HD covered the ceremony. The digital HD trucks are equipped with two Grass Valley Kalypso HD video prodiction center switchers; five GVeous HD digital video effects systems; several PVS 1000 SD and PVS 2000 HD Profile XP Media Platform servers; and more than 30 Grass Valley LDK 6000 mk II WorldCam multi-format HD cameras.

On board NEP's Silver and SS20 HD production trucks, one crew produced the SD broadcast in the 4:3 aspect ratio and the HD version in 16:9 widescreen. Much of the HD material was acquired in native 720p resolution. "Knowing that 720p is ABC's preferred format, we could not have accomplished what we did without the LDK 6000 mk II WorldCam cameras and Profile servers," said George Hoover, senior vice president of operations and engineering for NEP Supershooters.