70 TVBEurope The Workflow The Sun shines on a budget
David Fox visited The Sun Studios, which News International commissioned out to deltatre to build for its Premier League/football- related programming
THE SUN is the UK’s biggest- selling newspaper, and like most news organisations, it is doing an increasing amount of video for the web and its iPad editions. Its owners are also involved in TV, with Sky and Fox, so it wanted something that could meet broadcast standards — but on a budget.
It called in deltatre, whose technical manager for Video, Paul Underwood, was project director for The Sun Studios, and had to get creative to make the most of restricted space, funding and technical skills. “Part of the brief was that journalists would be using it. There are no TV people here,” he explains.
The technology was a mix of
broadcast and IT. “We needed to build a state-of-the-art broadcast studio, but picking products that were simple to use, with iPad-like touch controls.” The Sun didn’t know exactly
what type of programming they would eventually produce, so the studios had to be very flexible. It currently does a lot of hour-long
Laser display: The Prysm video wall is controlled by clever IDS automation
all three areas, and an edit area. The two studios on the eighth
floor each have three cameras, on Shotoku pedestals and heads (with robotic tracking, pan, tilt, zoom and height). The VR studio uses Reflec Media’s grey screen system, with green LED ringlights around the camera lens.
lenses, (for which he considered getting wide convertors, because the studio is small, but luckily the lenses had just enough coverage).
The open studio has three
JVC GY-HM700 camcorders, which it already owned, “but they will also be replaced by
“With KVM, don’t cut corners. You need to go with a digital solution [DVI-based]. Going with an analogue-based system doesn’t work”
celebrity web chats, streamed live, and with the start of the football season, is also doing a lot of soccer-related shows. There are three studios: an outside area (in the newspaper office), with a large video wall; the main studio, which is mostly used as a virtual studio powered by RT Software’s VR system; and a small studio area on the floor above for pieces to camera. There is one gallery, controlling
Camera choices It installed three Sony PMW- 500 cameras, with RCP-1000 control systems, in the main studio. “We looked at JVC and Sony. We wanted cameras that could be used as both studio and ENG cameras, and did a shoot off,” after which they felt that “Sony had the better product at a good price,” he says. The cameras have Fujinon ZA17x7.6BRD-S6
Sounds different: The Axia audio desk isn’t the normal broadcast choice
problem was that it was the longest lead time on the project.” All cabling is fibre, to reduce the amount of cable needed. “It was worth spending the extra,” he says. The cameras are fitted with
Paul Underwood, The Sun Studios
PMW-500s.” Underwood also likes Sony’s Wi-Fi adaptor, allowing easy logging of shots and adding metadata on an XM Pilot-equipped iPad. Similarly, the choice of Shotoku over Vinten Rademec robotics came down to cost. Underwood had seen the Shotoku system, with its touchscreen control, at IBC last year, and was “very impressed by it. The only
Autocue prompters (the Studio also uses an Autocue video server for ingest and playout). Wireless links are taken care of by Boxx TV Meridian and Tallis systems. When Boxx came in to demonstrate, it worked all the way up to the 13th floor, and down to the entrance lobby. “We were blown away by it.” Although this was from one antenna, they installed two (on the 8th and 13th floors) “so they can talk and walk anywhere in the building. I’m very impressed.”
Light fantastic Because the studios are in an existing office block, there is limited height, so they fitted a selection of Kino Flo Parabeam 210 soft lights, i-Pix Sat 2 LEDs, and classic Dedolights for the hard light — all of which take up little space.
“I wanted a lighting control system that was very simple to use,” and settled on an ETC Architectural Control System and a dual Unison system with Paradigm touchscreens, plus an Ion lighting desk. “It works fantastically well,” he says. “It gives us simplistic lighting, but also the flexibility of doing something more advanced.” The main studio, in an acoustically sealed box, was built by IAC. It has two external walls which are glazed (and fitted with ND filters when necessary). However the windows are surrounded by Velcro strips, to fit Reflec Media panels, “so we can have any skyline we want.” The physical sets are also covered with Velcro, so branding boards are easy to add. The open area has a
4.1mx1.9m Prysm TD1 video wall with 40 tiles (8x5), which was chosen after also looking at Eyevis Omnishapes and MicroTiles. Although Prysm was more expensive, Underwood preferred the quality of its Laser Phosphor Display, and became
State-of-the-art but simple to use: Underwood inThe Sun’s gallery
www.tvbeurope.com September 2013
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