![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/main\/files\/2012\/08\/MiraImage1.gif\" "\\"MiraImage1\\"")
<\/a>MIRA Mobile’s M12HD will serve as the primary production unit for many of the Pac-12 Networks’ A-level broadcasts.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThey are putting in a fair amount of resources into this first game,\u201d says Frank Coll, director, business development at MIRA Mobile Television. \u201cThey want to come out of the blocks shining. So we\u2019re bringing out the big guns, and we\u2019re looking forward to launching with these guys with a big bang.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the slickest truck in MIRA\u2019s fleet, M12 will regularly serve as the mobile unit of choice for all of Pac-12 Networks A-level broadcasts on football Saturdays and throughout the men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball season.<\/p>\n
Confident in the burgeoning sports-television industry on the West Coast \u2014\u00a0this year has seen the launch of FS San Diego and seven Pac-12 Networks and will welcome Time Warner Cable\u2019s new Lakers networks in October \u2014\u00a0MIRA began building M12 without a contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just convinced that we were going to get an opportunity,\u201d says Frank Taylor, VP\/GM at MIRA Mobile, \u201cand we just wanted to be sure that we were already well down the road to being able to handle that opportunity before it really even coalesced into something we could get our arms around.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Pac-12 Enterprises came calling and the two sides were able to strike a deal, M12 proved to be a perfect fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we got deeper into discussions with the Pac-12 and we had a look at their RFP [request for proposal] for their A-level football and basketball, there were things we knew we had to be sure were going to be on board any truck we were going to dedicate to that A-level package,\u201d says Taylor. \u201cAs it ended up, M12 ended up meeting 99% of the specs that they had in their RFP for the A-level events already.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 53-ft. Expando is similar in size and layout to other trucks in the MIRA fleet \u2014\u00a0most notably M7, M9, and M11 \u2014\u00a0but the company made significant technological changes that point its future in a new direction. M12 has an Evertz router, whereas other MIRA trucks use PESA. Instead of Sony cameras, M12 features 12 Grass Valley LDK 8000 Elite cameras coupled with Fujinon lenses, including two 101xs. M12 also marks the first MIRA truck to use a Grass Valley Kayenne HD production switcher.<\/p>\n
According to Tyler, though, the biggest changes are on the audio side, with MIRA upgrading to Calrec\u2019s Artemis Beam with Bluefin2 and Hydra2. Extensive audio embedding\/de-embedding is incorporated, supporting 48 video sources. In addition, there is a 256×256 MADI interface to the Evertz router.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked together for a long time,\u201d says Leon Schweir, SVP of production and operations for Pac-12 Networks. \u201cSo they understand our markets and know our universities very well. We figured, with us launching new networks in new facilities, we should also have a new truck, so their cutting-edge M12HD equipment will fit in nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Inside of M12 where, for the first time, a MIRA truck hosts a Grass Valley Kayenne HD production switcher.<\/p><\/div>\n
M12 has gotten some warm-up swings in over the summer, first hitting the road in early June and covering just under 40 events, including various international soccer friendlies and Major League Soccer matches.<\/p>\n
Following its Pac-12 debut on Friday, M12 will next be in Utah for the networks’ football debut on Aug. 30, when the Utes host Northern Colorado. It will then have to make a quick trip up to Seattle for a Saturday-night telecast of San Diego State at Washington.<\/p>\n
Pac-12 Networks is kicking its football coverage off in a big way over the first two weekends of the college football season. With two games on Aug. 30, the networks will celebrate the first Saturday of the season on Sept. 1 with three more games on its air. On Sept. 8, another six games will be aired across the national and six regional networks.<\/p>\n
That means there is plenty of truck business to go around. MIRA\u2019s M11 will be on the schedule for the entire football season to help shoulder the load. To cover the first two big weekends, MIRA is turning for assistance from their Alliance Productions partners.<\/p>\n
MIRA\u2019s M4 is also helping the networks get their sea legs, The slightly more compact production unit will cover five live events in August prior to the start of the football season. For many of the non-football broadcasts throughout the fall and for many other B-level broadcasts throughout the year, Pac-12 Networks inked a deal with iN DEMAND to supply more space- and cost-efficient mobile units<\/a>.<\/p>\n Taylor and the rest of the MIRA Mobile team were thrilled when they landed the Pac-12 package, which was officially announced in April.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you can imagine, we were pretty pleased,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt was something that we had our sights set on for a long time. As the largest West Coast mobile-facilities company, this wasn\u2019t something that suddenly occurred to us was a great idea. We were very focused about putting together a partnership with the Pac-12 Networks because we knew it would likely be the single biggest thing to change in the Western U.S. marketplace in our business ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Although all of the 800+ live events that Pac-12 plans to broadcast to its linear or digital networks will not be serviced by mobile units \u2014\u00a0the network has established a multicam flypack system on each of the campuses of its member schools for its C- and D-level broadcasts \u2014\u00a0Coll acknowledges that the work load is still large and adds that \u201cevery truck in the fleet is going to get a chance to work a Pac-12 event.\u201d<\/p>\n To help handle the work load, MIRA is currently converting M6 from SD to HD<\/a> and expects it to be on the road by Nov. 1, just in time to tackle the more than 100 men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball games that are on the horizon come the winter.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big challenge for us on the mobile side is just the sheer number of events; it\u2019s a massive undertaking,\u201d says Coll. \u201cThere is still a tremendous amount of truck events that they are going to be doing, and that, I think, for a company like MIRA is pretty daunting. It\u2019s a big challenge, but we\u2019re up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pac-12 Enterprises will celebrate another milestone moment in its launch on Friday night, when the networks air their first live event as the top-ranked and defending National Champion Stanford women\u2019s […]\n More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[418,5440,5779],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}