Gearhouse Broadcast Provide Broadcast Solutions at 15th Asian Games, Doha
Eamonn Dowdall Managing Director at Gearhouse Broadcast said, “We were awarded the contract by host broadcaster DAGBS on our track record in delivering broadcast solutions for major international sporting events and on the strength of previous performances for both HBS and TWI the organisations who make up DAGBS.”
The 15th Asian Games officially commence on Friday 1 December, 2006 with the Opening Ceremony and conclude with the Closing Ceremony on Friday 15 December, 2006. For the first time since 1974, the Games are held in West Asia with over 45 countries and regions competing across a record-breaking 39 sports in more than 40 venues.
Planning for the project is well underway with numerous site and venue visits to Doha, meeting with the client DAGBS to ascertain their requirements and interpret their specifications. The final combination of flyaway systems that best suits the project needs has been chosen. Gearhouse Broadcast will supply, install and operate eight complete production flyaway systems which will range from six camera to ten camera and will be used for the production coverage of the host feed at the twelve stadiums where the various sporting contests will take place. The flyaway’s come out of Gearhouse Broadcast’s range of flyway products and systems at their UK offices.
Gearhouse Broadcast will supply a total of sixty-five operational crew members including engineers, audio engineers, communication engineers, vision controllers, and riggers. The Games are demanding logistically due to the events being held across twelve stadiums throughout Doha.
Provision of broadcast equipment for the Games involves supplying cameras for the field of play areas including twenty-eight HDC 1500s, twenty-six BVP 950s, and high speed super-motion cameras using the Sony HDC 3300 and Thomson LDK23-HS and also three Panasonic AWE 800 SDI cameras.
Eamonn Dowdall, Managing Director at Gearhouse Broadcast said, “the cameras chosen offer the latest technology available and they will provide the host broadcaster with picture quality of the highest standard.”
The Replay rooms will contain twenty-five EVS XTs. And the twelve production control rooms at each stadium venue will be fitted out with nine production galleries each of which will be installed using sixty-seven LCD Vutrix Series of 23” HD/SD screens. A range of nine vision desks will be supplied from the Sony DVS 7350 to the new MFS 2000, Snell and Wilcox’s Kahuna, Thomson’s DD Series. Controlled via the desks are replay transition devices which will be used to give the mix effect between slo-mo replays and live production.
The Master Control Areas for engineering and quality control will comprise of test and measurement equipment from Tektronix utilising the WFM 700 and the 601E series. Routers selected will be the Pro-bel series and the Pro-bel Aurora series HD/SD routing systems. Leitch equipment has been selected for the distribution and glue products. Evertz has been selected for the system sync generation equipment and fibre equipment used.
The Audio Control Room will comprise of audio desks from Soundcraft Series 5 56-channel, Soundcraft B800 48-channel console, DDA CS-8 32 channel audio console, and Midas Venice 240 24-channel consoles. Audio monitoring and quality control will be carried out on Bel series monitoring equipment. A variety of microphones have been selected to cover the sporting contests being played which comprise of twenty-four Sennheiser MKH- 816, ninety Sennheiser MKH 416, eleven Audio Technica AT 835 ST stereo microphones and various smaller microphones.
The communications systems provided will be the Clearcom Compact 72 series and new Riedel communications systems. All of the associated broadcast cabling at each of the twelve venues will be supplied and installed by Gearhouse Broadcast. And all of the cabling used will be Belden broadcast series cable, including audio multi ways, triax video and data cabling.
Gearhouse Broadcast will provide ancillary services for the Games consisting of project and logistics management and technical support. The broadcast solutions provider will handle the procurement of equipment required and co-ordinate the transportation of this equipment to and from the venues in Qatar. “We have been working with both HBS and TWI for many years on various international sporting events including the last two world cups and the Commonwealth Games. We have a very good working relationship with these clients and pride ourselves in the consistent provision of high standard broadcast solutions and facilities.