NEP, Grass find Oscar success for fifth straight year

The pristine high-definition images of the 79th Academy Awards

telecast which aired on Sunday, February 25 was broadcast around the
world with Grass Valley

high-definition

equipment, just as they
have for the past five years. This year’s HDTV broadcast of the Oscars
was aired live in the US on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood,
in 720p HD format.

Mobile production facilities
were provided by NEP Supershooters, which operated two of its all-digital
HD mobile units, “Silver” and “Gold,” on-site for the main awards
presentation telecast. The company’s “SS25” production truck was
also employed to cover celebrities arriving as part of ABC’s pre-show
“Red Carpet” coverage. All three trucks are equipped with Grass
Valley multi-format HD production equipment and systems, including HD
cameras, switchers, servers, routers, and conversion modules.

More than 20 Grass Valley LDK
6000 mk II WorldCam HD cameras were used throughout the Kodak Theatre
in connection with Silver and Gold mobile units, along with two Grass
Valley Kalypso Video Production Center switchers—one handling the
16:9 HD broadcast and the other handling the 4:3 SD show for analog
viewers. Both trucks employed several Grass Valley PVS 2000 HD Profile

XP Media Platform servers, Grass Valley SMS7000 and Concerto Series
routers, as well as a full complement of Grass Valley Kameleon

signal processing and conversion modules. NEP Supershooters’ SS25 used
a dozen LDK 6000 WorldCam cameras, a Kalypso HD switcher, and is equipped
with the new GeckoFlex

HD signal processing system.

For the live stage show inside
the Kodak Theatre, video server company ProQue operated four Grass Valley
PVS 2000 HD Profile servers and a mix of five PDR 200 and PDR 300 MPEG
SD servers. All servers were controlled by ProQue’s Prodisk proprietary
system. The servers provided random-access playback for the show’s
pre-taped segments, commercials, and billboard packages, as well as
the dozens of film clips that were shown on-screen during the telecast.
ProQue has used the Profile server to support both the Academy Awards
and Grammy telecasts (initially in SD and more recently in HD) each
year for the last 11 years.