TNDV Delivers High School Hoops in Tennessee

TNDV is wrapping production on the inaugural season of High School Hoops on WUXP Nashville, featuring the hottest high school basketball team match-ups in Middle Tennessee from regular season through the semi-finals.  The TNDV team was selected due to the professional live production quality they delivered for the first two seasons of Thursday Night Lights, which brought live high school football games to local Nashville television in HD for the first time.

The station’s parent company, WZTV  Nashville, chose to launch High School Hoops based on public and advertiser response to the first two seasons of Thursday Night Lights.

“As a local sports leader in the Nashville market, we wanted to bring the best possible HD products to air on MyTV30,” says Dominic Mancuso, general manager for Sinclair Broadcasting in Nashville.  “TNDV helped us accomplish this with fully HD capable trucks and talented staffing.”

With a 17-member video crew, TNDV drives its Inspiration mobile production truck across Middle Tennessee — a region that includes Nashville and Murfreesboro — to provide live coverage of each week’s game.  Inspiration outputs a 720pHD program that is then transmitted via the Fox affiliate’s satellite uplink truck for live broadcast.

“Our creative and technical goal for High School Hoops has been to produce live game coverage that emulates, and even rivals, the look and feel of collegiate sports telecasts,” Dugger adds.  “We strive to capture the sights, sounds and excitement of each game as if the home viewer were there to experience it firsthand.  And we embellish the coverage with high-caliber live graphics packages, clock and scoring graphics, and instant replay systems.”

At the venue, TNDV strategically deploys five high-end HD cameras (with a mix of fixed and handhelds) and eight to 10 microphones to capture game action from every critical vantage point.  Viewers hear the shoe squeaks, net swishes and crowd reactions as teams move up and down the court, all mixed on a Soundcraft Vi1 audio console.

The workflow includes a dual-channel Pinnacle Deko live HD graphics system that integrates real-time data into the graphics, including vital player information and statistics. An eight-channel Abekas Mira live replay system gives truck operators maximum flexibility in the configuration of the I/Os as well as precision slo-mo (slow-motion), fast motion and instant replays.

The entire program is switched using a Ross Vision 2ME switcher, including camera shots, lower third supers, full-screen graphics and effects – giving the productions the professional look that the stations seek and to which viewers respond.

“We look forward to working with TNDV for future seasons of Thursday Night Lights (High School Football) and High School Hoops (High School Basketball),” adds Mancuso.