The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics at West Virginia University has made a substantial investment in Panasonic P2 HD products over the past year to streamline its production activities and produce programming faster within a file-based workflow.
To facilitate this new production, the department has purchased an AJ-HPX2700 P2 HD VariCam, AJ-HPX300 P2 HD camcorders configured for studio use, two AJ-HPX500 P2 HD shoulder-mounts and two AJ-HPM110 P2 Mobile HD recorder/players. The P2 Mobile recorders are used to record a live multicamera line cut from the video boards at home games and to record the game from the network TV truck on the road.
Chris Ostien, senior producer/director for the Mountaineer Sports Network (MSN), a multimedia operation operated by WVU that reports on and promotes the university's 17 varsity teams, is collaborating with University Relations-Video and using the VariCam 2700 for high-end recruitment videos, institutional television spots, providing highlights and programming to ESPN and other national networks and local stations, and more.
During football season, the HPX500s are used on the sidelines to capture footage for "Mountaineers 360" (the weekly coach's television show), for various video board productions (e.g., entrance video, kickoff video, moving headshots), and for features for the WVU athletic website. The popular half-hour show with head football coach Bill Stewart airs on network affiliates across West Virginia, as well as on SNY, MASN and FOX College Sports.
