Pacific Broadcast, a full-service production company in Melbourne, Australia, is using HD production technology from Grass Valley (www.grassvalley.com) to produce video segments of a number of championship surfing events held around the globe.
The team is using eight Grass Valley LDK 8000 Elite cameras and a Kayak HD video production switcher on board a mobile production truck and, when traveling overseas, as part of specially designed flyaway production kits.
Matt Percy, managing director for Pacific Broadcast, said that having a camera head with a choice of triax or fiber transmission was a selling point for them. As they are more confident in the reliability of triax transmission, they also purchased two Grass Valley HD Triax Extenders to allow signals to travel up to 2.4km (1.5 miles) over triax.
The LDK 8000 camera's ability to capture images in multiple HD and SD formats means Pacific Broadcast can choose different resolutions in 50Hz and 60Hz, enabling them to be creative with their global coverage of a sport that's become popular around the world.
