Trio Video Continues Expansion Into Live Entertainment Production

Trio
Video, a 25-year veteran in the sports and live entertainment industry, has
seen tremendous growth in the area of high-definition (HD) production for live
music festivals, concerts, and corporate events. Trio is using a full
complement of

Grass

Valley multiformat HD
production equipment from Thomson to satisfy the demanding needs of its
clients.

The
Chicago-based company now operates three large HD trucks, “Phoenix,” “Rhythm,”
and “Tango,” which collectively use up to 40 Grass Valley LDK 6000 mk II Worldcam
HD cameras, three Kalypso HD Video Production Center switchers, and three
Trinix HD video routers. The 53-foot Rhythm is the latest addition, with
expandable sides and an all-HD infrastructure that include Grass Valley
GeckoFlex™ and Kameleon™ signal processing modules. All of this multiformat
equipment works equally well whether producing shows at 24 frames per second
(preferred by entertainment clients), or the more common SD and HD (720p and
1080i) formats at 30 and 60 frames per second.

Trio Video
sent three of its HD production trucks to cover the 6th annual Bonnaroo Music
Festival, in

Manchester,
Tenn., on June 14-17th. The event took place
over seven music stages covered by three Grass Valley Kalypso HD switchers, 26
LDK 6000 mk II Worldcam HD cameras, and more than 40 VTRs. The company provided
all the HD equipment and crews for the Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2006, and is
scheduled to provide the same expertise in 2008.

“Trio is
not only supplying the equipment, we’re designing the production system and
developing a blueprint to cover these major, multi-venue events,” said Peter
Kimball, Director of Program Development and Production for Trio Video. “We’re
doing a lot of HD production and the

Grass

Valley equipment has
stood up extremely well on all of our live entertainment and sports projects.”

The
Bonnaroo Music Festival produced by Axis Events LLC/NYC and project managed by
Third Wave Productions/Chicago was cited by Billboard magazine as one of the
most successful and highest grossing music events of the season. Trio Video
also provided their expertise using Grass Valley HD equipment for the
U2-Vertigo tour, the John Mayer Trio tour, as well as Lollapalooza 2006.

Most
recently, Tango, along with the B-unit support truck “Beta” completed coverage
of the threeday Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, an alternative rock
concert, live from Indio, Calif. (April 27-29th). Trio also showcased the
two-day, four-stage country music festival, Stagecoach, also held in

Indio (May 5th and 6th).
The productions will be seen on TV and on the Web. For Trio, it meant four
stages had to be covered with over 13 Grass Valley HD cameras.

The
1080/23.98psf production was also seen on the AT&T “Blue Room” online
service, which offers live concerts via the Internet.

“What’s
become clear to us is that the market for mobile production trucks is expanding
and we’re right at the front end of the trend,” said Kimball. “We have extensive
production experience and are always looking to move into new areas of
distribution to assist our clients in achieving their goals.”

In

Indio, Tango covered all
of the music on the main stage while Beta handled the Webcast activities. A
Kalypso HD switcher on-board covered the main stages along with several smaller
Kalypso 1M/E switchers set up to support the secondary performance stages used
for the Southern California rock festival. A Trinix router helped the switchers
communicate with each other and combined all feeds for the main production.

Trio Video
is slated to provide their expertise, using Grass Valley HD equipment, to every
major multi-day music festival in the

U.S. this year.