Germany’s TV Skyline taps S&W Kahuna for World Cup

Germany s TV Skyline, a television production company and provider of innovative broadcast solutions to the European market, is using a Snell & Wilcox Kahuna SD/HD multiformat production switcher to deliver HD coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup for pay-TV provider Premiere.

Installed in TV Skyline s state-of-the-art HD production truck, 5HD, the Kahuna switcher is being used to integrate sources from as many as 12 external HD services, six additional cameras from the truck, and a variety of other SD and HD sources in the production of both an SD and a 16:9 HD 1080i broadcast signal.

From our point of view, the Kahuna is the only high-end mixer on the market that really offers multiformat possibilities, said Wolfgang Reeh, owner and managing director of TV Skyline. The Kahuna is alone in allowing us to work with SD and HD signals in several formats and to integrate all these different signals and formats in one mixer, without the need for external downconversion. At the end of the day, no other production switcher can offer the same functionality provided by the Kahuna.

In multiformat SD/HD mode, Kahuna users can mix existing SD camera feeds, graphics, handheld shots, and archive footage directly into an HD production with no need to purchase expensive HD upgrades or extra HD upconversion equipment. A Snell & Wilcox technology called FormatFusion allows SD sources to be integrated seamlessly into HD productions, and vice versa, without the need for conversion.

Switcher operators in 5HD can allocate the Kahuna s mix/effects banks (M/Es) to output either in SD or HD and then mix any of the inputs, regardless of format, to produce a seamless HD or SD result. This operational flexibility extends Kahuna s ability to network multiple control surfaces to different mainframes, to allocate one mainframe to separate control panels, or to operate in SD or HD as required, making maximum use of all available M/Es.

TV Skyline s Kahuna system features 60 inputs and is equipped with four M/E banks, each with four-channel 3D DVE and a RAM recorder to enable high-quality slow motion playback. In addition to the main control interface, which is operated by the technical director, the system features a second smaller panel, equipped with two M/E banks and 24 signals per key bank for direct access by a second director.

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