A year in the life of SIS LIVE

David Meynell

Author: David Meynell

Published 1st October 2013

by David Meynell
Issue 81 - September 2013
This time a year ago SIS LIVE was still glowing with the pride that came from working to deliver outside broadcast TV coverage and satellite connectivity for London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic events. At the time 2013 was billed as a fallow year for the live broadcasting industry which, as we will see, was perhaps a slight fallacy. We caught up with David Meynell, MD of broadcast and connectivity expert SIS LIVE, who gave us a run-down of the various projects and events the company has been involved in this past year.
Its hard to believe its been a year since the last IBC. In some ways it seems like yesterday but then I start to think of everything thats happened this year and its not so inconceivable. The projects below are just some of those weve been involved in this year.

October 2012

Emmerdale Live Having delivered live episodes of Coronation Street and Eastenders in the past we were pleased to be asked to support Emmerdales special 40th anniversary broadcast. The feedback from production teams praised our staff for their calm professionalism - as delivery of live TV is our bread and butter I feel we brought a steadying hand to proceedings.
Freeze Festival A few years back we designed and built our own compact production vehicle and christened it SISCaster. This Sprinter van, packed with modern technology including NewTeks Tricaster, can produce impressively comprehensive event coverage even with a small number of crew. Freeze Festival, a winter sports and music event at Battersea Power Station, was proof of this being delivered by a team of just 3 people.
OB 14 launched at MediaCityUK In October we officially unveiled our new OB 14 OB truck at a special event at MediaCityUK. The day we were there happened to coincide with Salford Universitys freshers week so there were points in the day the truck was overrun with excitable media students jostling for position alongside old and new clients¦ all good fun! This medium sized truck was designed and integrated by our in-house team and has been very much in demand since the launch..

November 2012

Blue Tower facilities come fully online For us November was one of the most exciting months of 2012 as this was the month that all our facilities came fully online at our MediaCityUK. This project was years in the making so it was a proud moment to see our new teleport, MCR, galleries, studios, technical facilities in action, as well as to see members of our staff moving into their sleek new offices.
Royal Variety Performance Recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in front of the Queen and Prince Philip this years event marked 100 years since the first show. We used this event to explore the potential of our new Sony 2500 HD cameras. Theres nothing our camera operators like more than to have some brand new state of the art kit to play around with and weve been using these cameras to their full potential more and more in the last year.
December 2012

LOreal Live stream This event gave us a great stage on which to demonstrate how our different divisions can combine to deliver end to end solutions. For this live event, staged by LOreal to promote a new hair product, we provided outside broadcast, satellite uplink/downlink, teleport, fibre connectivity, encoding and distribution services. As we were in charge of the whole process we were able to make sure the picture kept its full 1080 HD quality right from camera to computer.
Christmas and the New Year We wrapped up traditional Christmas TV handling broadcasts of Carols from Kings, Midnight Mass and Christmas Day Eucharist, as well as coverage of the impressive London fireworks which rang in the new year.

January 2013
Stargazing live
Weve delivered outside broadcast and satellite uplink services for all three series of Stargazing live, creating the programming live on site at the famous Jodrell Bank observatory using our huge triple expanding flagship OB 1 truck and Link 21, our hub communications vehicle. This years three programme run featured in depth looks at the night sky with informative facts and features presented by Prof Brian Cox and Dara OBriain.
New contract with European Tour Productions In January we signed a new contract with ETP to provide satellite services, uplink trucks and flyaway units for their golfing events in Europe and the Middle East, as well as co-ordination of local uplink providers and satellite services for events in South Africa, Asia and Australasia. Its been great to continue this successful relationship with them.
February 2013
4K trials
Having been exploring new 4K / ultra HD technology at base for some time we set up a field trial at a Premiership game back in February. This gave us the opportunity to investigate how 4K cameras might be best used in live sports settings as well as a chance to learn about the signal path and manipulation of 4K images within OB trucks.
Top Shop Model cam
Our special cameras and RF teams had an interesting experience rigging remote miniature cameras and RF transmitters into the handbags of models for use on Top Shops catwalk during London Fashion week. There were some interesting ModelCam shots produced that day¦ and although Top Shop pushed really hard, I declined to model their new trunks!
DriveForce hits the road for Sky Sports
Our product development team has been hard at work this year, developing our DriveForce roof mounted antenna. In February we integrated and launched 6 new uplink trucks featuring the system and these have been working with great success for Sky Sports News as well as other sports and news clients. March 2013
Dancing on Ice
Filmed at Elstree Studios ITVs Dancing on Ice combines a wide variety of genres including sports, drama, entertainment, comedy and music, and so the TV coverage has to reflect this. The experience of our crews across multiple genres here makes us well suited to the delivery of this kind of show.
RRSAT Partnership
In March we also further cemented our relationship with RRSAT, a leading provider of comprehensive digital content management and global distribution services. RRSAT now provides us with solutions for distributing live golf events to and from Asia and we, in turn, are their preferred supplier for European teleport and turnaround services.
April 2013
London Marathon
Our crews have extensive experience in delivering coverage of this complex event and we pride ourselves on our good relationships with the huge number of on-site suppliers, providers and authorities. Through this we are able to offer our clients a fully managed technical solution, something Im not convinced that many others could do in the same way.
Funeral of Baroness Thatcher
This was an historic moment in British history and an innovative one in TV terms. The programme was actually created aboard our OB 7 vehicle which was parked up at our Milton Keynes base some 50 miles away from London. Our bases have excellent satellite and fibre connectivity which gives us the ability to produce programmes remotely, meaning that in the future production teams and facilities could be centrally located leading to better utilisation. Its an interesting concept¦ and one weve now proved is viable.
May 2013
Dambusters 70th Anniversary
This special programme featured stunning footage from one of only two operational Lancaster Bombers left in the world. SIS LIVE is the only company approved by the Ministry of Defence to install broadcast equipment on the aircraft, which is quite an accolade. One of our engineers (who has amassed more flight time than some of the pilots!) helped produce exciting coverage of recreations of the bombing raid conditions.
Help for Heroes
As well as working for established broadcasters we also work with a large number of companies who are comparatively new to broadcasting. The Help for Heroes charity came to us wanting to produce coverage of Prince William and Prince Harrys visit to open one of their centres, and stream it live on their website. Using our SISCaster vehicle and IP team at Milton Keynes we achieved a quality broadcast in a cost efficient manner. June 2013
Pompeii live
We were pleased to be involved in the first ever live cinema event broadcast by the British Museum. As relative beginners to the art of broadcasting they were extremely appreciative of our expertise in making sure their programme was delivered safely.
Airport live
This ambitious series took viewers behind the scenes at the worlds busiest airport, London Heathrow. Broadcasting in and around a busy airport is not the simplest task and meant extensive planning, tight security and technical ingenuity, particularly to ensure that our RF and satellite communications didnt disrupt aircraft communications.

July 2013

Wimbledon Tennis
This turned out to be quite an historic year at Wimbledon with Andy Murray becoming the first British male to win in 77 years and we enjoyed delivering coverage of the 2 week tournament. We delivered HD coverage from the 9 televised courts and a host of other facilities such as a new remotely operated tower cam overlooking Murray Mound and Blue Peter broadcasts from the broadcast centre roof.
Royal Baby Birth
Our satellite uplink fleet was very busy delivering news coverage of the Royal birth of Prince George for 7 major UK and US broadcasters, including providing over 101 hours of satellite time for US broadcasters over just 2 days. August 2013
92 Live
Ahead of the new season Sky Sports News broadcast live from every one of the 92 Premier and Football league club grounds in the UK over just 12 hours, making broadcasting history in the process. We were involved in two months of extensive planning ahead of the programme and provided 15 SNG/uplink trucks to support the delivery.
September 2013
Partner Programme announced
And now were back at IBC! One thing were really keen to talk about is our new Partner Programme. We design and manufacture a range of award-winning satellite and broadcast products and are keen to extend our reach into other territories and markets. Were interested in working with companies who have existing relationships with potential customers and hope theyll come to find us at IBC or through wwwsislive.tv to discuss the benefits of working with SIS LIVE.
Americas Cup Finals
Weve been providing agile cameras, RF services and a talented technical team to the Americas Cup for the last three years and were nominated for an RTS Award for this Multi-camera work back in November. The Americas Cup finals will be happening during IBC, so do look out for our handiwork there!

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