NASCAR Media Group (NMG), the production and creative services company for NASCAR, is using 34 KONA 3 video capture and playback cards from AJA Video to facilitate a smooth, fast post-production workflow. KONA 3 is an uncompressed capture card for SD, HD, and dual-link 4:4:4 HD for Apple Mac Pro systems.
As part of its transition to HD, and in preparation for a move later this year to a new facility at the 40,000sq-ft NASCAR Plaza under construction in Charlotte, NC, NMG made the conversion to an all-Apple ProRes workflow.
The facility, led by Jeff Lowe, NMG managing director of media and broadcast technology, employs 16 KONA 3 cards to ingest 150 hours of multicamera shooting for each race. An additional eight KONA 3 cards are used for editing playback in NMG's 10 edit bays as well as to handle duplication and new media and support field operations for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series.
In addition to the KONA 3 video cards employed on the post-production side of operations, NMG also uses the AJA FS1 frame sync in its field operations. The FS1 is a universal HD/SD, audio and video frame synchronizer and converter that supports virtually any input or output format in use in the 40 production trucks NASCAR employs.
