Having opened an office in Basingstoke, Hampshire, in 2019, Broadcast Solutions are pleased to announce a new member of the UK team. As of January 2020, JP Delport will join the company and take on the role of Sales Director (Broadcast Solutions UK). With this addition, Broadcast Solutions has now underpinned its commitment to the UK market and is able to facilitate an increasing demand for their products and services with a dedicated team of six experts based in the UK full time. 

Gravity Media, the leading global provider of complex live broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors, has promoted Ed Tischler to the position of Acting Managing Director. In this new role, Ed will be responsible for the strategic direction and commercial performance of all Gravity Media’s UK-based operations, which include Media Services & Facilities, Production & Content and Equipment Rental & Sales. This appointment follows the recent move to the single brand of Gravity Media late last year and Ed will take the lead in integrating the former Gearhouse Broadcast, HyperActive Broadcast and Input Media businesses in the UK. In addition, Layla Cook has also been promoted, becoming Gravity Media’s new UK Broadcast Equipment Rental Manager. 

Ed will report directly into John Newton, Gravity Media’s CEO. In the UK he will work closely with James Gander who continues to oversee Gravity House, the Soho post-production facility, as well as the integrated workflows service for live broadcast and feature film post-production and Steve Norris, the new Director, Production and Content. 

Layla will now oversee Gravity Media’s extensive inventory of the latest professional equipment which includes 4K-ready lenses, cameras and live production tools.

Camera Hire, a well-established Australian rental company and a leader in industry camera support solutions, recently purchased 10 CiNX 3 Fluid Heads and 10 Sprinter II 2 Stage Carbon Fibre Tripods from Miller Tripods. For over a decade, Camera Hire has provided professional cameras and supporting equipment for a large range of productions including commercials, documentaries and feature films.

As a long-time customer of Miller Tripods, Bevan Dally, managing director of Camera Hire, knows he can always turn to Miller to provide top-of-the-line solutions for his customer base. “We’ve been using Miller’s ArrowX series for some time now and the fluid heads are excellent,” he says. “The payload range and versatility are very beneficial considering the various types of jobs we support. With the CiNX line, our customers are able to mount a variety of cameras, including Sony’s FS7, Canon’s C300’s, and ARRI’S Alexa Mini and Amira, with ease.”

Thanks to Miller’s CiNX 3 Fluid Heads, Camera Hire can provide its customers with a solution that significantly improves cinematographer’s workflows. “Upgrading to the brand new CiNX series was a no brainer for us, especially because of its ability to mount ARRI dovetail plates directly on the head,” Dally says. “We can now easily provide our clients with a Sony VCT or ARRI dovetail system using the same fluid head, without the need to swap back and forth between multiple plates. With CiNX fluid heads, cinematographer’s can easily and quickly change from one camera to another with a seamless transition.”

Sony has announced that the Sony BRC Series PTZ remote cameras have been chosen to capture unique close-up footage of the heart-warming story of beautiful lynx cats in the high-end TV wildlife series, Snow Cats & Me.

Produced by Oak Island Films and Hello Halo TV, the two-part series pushes creative and technical boundaries to present an intimate portrait of animals in the wild. With the producer Ted Oakes, Managing Director of Oak Island Films commenting: “This was a tricky challenge: the Sony BRC cameras helped us capture amazing footage that expresses the unique character of these beautiful animals in their natural environment.”

Blackmagic Design today announced that live production workflows, featuring its products for acquisition, control and delivery, have been used on some of this year's biggest music festivals and concert tours.

Artists and events included Little Mix, Billie Eilish, Elton John, Fall Out Boy and Andrea Bocelli, as well as Festival Beauregard, Rocking the Daisies, Aftershock Festival and Sweden Rock.

As broadcast and AV workflows continue to converge, more and more rental and staging companies are now standardizing their video offerings to festivals and touring artists based on hardware solutions from Blackmagic Design. Not only has the amount of video demanded by the entertainment market increased in 2019, so too has the amount of 4K production for IMAG.

Sony has announced that its Simple Live Streaming service, a new proposition for users to streamline the process of acquiring live content, is now available (as of 12th December 2019). The additional workflow flexibility for its palm-sized 4K HDR professional camcorders, the HXR-NX80 and PXW-Z90, can be accessed via a free firmware upgrade to enable content creators to shoot wherever and however they want. 

With Wi-Fi connectivity, Simple Live Streaming enables high quality live streaming to major video sharing websites and social media platforms such as Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook with a single camcorder. Offering simple operation, it further enhances the remote delivery of content quickly without compromising on image quality. 

Norbert Paquet, Head of Product Management for Sony Professional Solutions comments: “The introduction of Simple Live Streaming for the HXR-NX80 and PXW-Z90 streamlines the overall workflow, from shooting to live distribution. Equipped with Simple Live Streaming, the camcorders will have online sharing features, further empowering content creators to concentrate on what they do best – storytelling on the go.” 

New action comedy, School Fight, uses the Shogun 7 HDR monitor/recorder to give the Sony FS7 a new lease of life

How do you make a full-length feature film, with flawless, cinematic values when your camera budget only stretches to the Sony FS7 cinema cameras already owned by the crew? It’s a conundrum the production team behind new action comedy, School Fight, solved by adding cutting edge recording technology from Atomos and Apple to their arsenal.

School Fight is a low budget, independent feature film, but you’d be forgiven for assuming the investment in the on-screen image was far more high-end. This comes from the crew’s unwavering commitment to achieving the highest possible production values by squeezing everything they could out of the camera equipment they had available and a minimal budget.

The concept for the film was the brainchild of seasoned stunt professional Damien Walters, so it’s no surprise that action sequences, fight scenes and all manner of carefully choreographed carnage is all featured heavily. He joined forces with producer Joby Stephens to bring this vision to life in full cinematic glory.

Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., Sony Mobile Communications Inc. and Verizon joined forces with NBC Sports to test how 5G can change the way live sports broadcasts are captured and produced. During the Houston Texans vs New England Patriots football game at NRG Stadium on December 1st, 2019, a camera person from NBC Sports captured video of the game on the field using Sony’s PXW-Z450 shoulder camcorder. The video was streamed through Sony’s prototype transmitter box and Xperia 5G mmWave device, via Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network to a production room in the stadium.

The test proved that 5G-connected cameras can be a reliable and beneficial option for future live sports broadcasts. Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband’s low latency and high bandwidth combined with Sony’s mobile device, video, and encoding expertise enabled low-latency high-quality video to be transmitted in near real time to producers. The test showed the potential for remote production teams to be located anywhere, regardless of where the game’s taking place. Furthermore, 5G’s essentially instant wireless connectivity means that cameras can be untethered, allowing for more creative camera positions and angles throughout the game and reducing set-up time and costs required for camera system integration.

AVer Europe has announced the launch of the M17-13M, its new mechanical arm visualiser, to the UK market. Boasting a 13-megapixel camera, 35.2X total zoom and full HD quality, the M17-13M offers one of the highest visualiser specifications available to education institutions to transform teaching and learning practices.

Operating as a document camera with impressive angle control, the M17-13M visualiser enables users to capture the best image clarity and detail. The onboard annotation capability provides users with the opportunity to add notes, highlight important information or add captions to presentation material easily, making explaining a tricky concept or a key point to a classroom simple.

Designed with a fully adjustable neck and head, the M17-13M visualiser can rotate, swivel, expand and collapse for the perfect angle to display presentation materials, including paper or 3D models. Its versatile compact design means it can be neatly folded away, making it ideal for quick storage or sharing between classrooms and practitioners. The product is bundled with AVER’s A+ Suite classroom software for visualisers and comes with a five-year warranty.

Masstech is pleased to announce that Srinivas Gankidi has joined the company as Sales Manager for India.

Srinivas has over 20 years’ experience in the media and entertainment industry, delivering file-based technology solutions to major broadcasters in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, including Zee TV, Sony TV, SRM Channels, Jain HITS, TV9, RIL (Reliance Infocom), NTV, Star Maa, Somoy TV, and Ghazi TV.

Prior to joining Masstech, Srinivas was Sales Manager for Media & Entertainment at Quantum Storage India Pvt Ltd., and previously held sales engineering positions with Evertz Microsystems and Harmonic Inc.

Srinivas will form part of Masstech’s Asia Pacific team, designing and deploying Masstech’s Kumulate intelligent storage and asset lifecycle management solutions for clients throughout the region.