More details from d3 Technologies (www.d3technologies.com)
Mexico City-based d3 Studio Darmah successfully delivered the live broadcast of Premios Juventud 2014 for the Univision network on 17 July 2014, using d3’s new DMX control feature SockPuppet next to 3D previsualization and playback using d3 pro range systems.
Premios Juventud, an annual awards ceremony celebrating celebrities in film, music, tv, sports and popular culture, is the highest ranking live TV broadcast on Hispanic television. Winners are voted for by the audience and the ceremony has a double function: it also donates money to fund scholarships for youth in need. Popular in the US, the Univision network ranked number 1 with this show in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and Dallas during this time and pulled a total of 8.8 million viewers.
Darmah have successfully been working with d3 for the past eight years and are amongst the very first companies to open a d3 Studio. Although Darmah was already working with the Univision network on a variety of shows, d3 was a new solution to this popular television production.
Rodrigo Proal, CEO of Darmah, says: “When the project was presented to us, we quickly got a view of all the video equipment that would be required. A demo was organized so we could show the client how d3 would improve their workflow, and most of all, how d3 could take the show to a higher visual level. We could convince the team, making Premios Juventud the very first fully live broadcast from the Univision network that ran on d3.”
SockPuppet DMX
The operation of the show was set to be controlled with a DMX lighting console, in this case a grandMA II. This is where d3’s software feature SockPuppet DMX came into play. Through SockPuppet DMX, each content layer created in d3 becomes a fully controllable DMX fixture. This allows access to all of d3’s powerful mapping, playback and projection features using the control surface desired. On top of this, SockPuppet layers can be freely combined with d3’s advanced timeline for a whole new level of show control.
Says Proal:”In previous years, this live show had been running on a variety of media servers, but operators always preferred working with DMX lighting consoles. With d3’s SockPuppet DMX feature we could combine this existing preference with the classic d3 timeline sequencing we use ahead of rehearsals and which we prefer, so we got the best of both worlds. We sequenced musical parts to the beat – meaning you put visual markers over your audio file so you work to the actual rhythm of the song, not seconds or minutes. This is something you ere always able to do with d3, and we still find it really useful.”
Going Pro
Although Darmah had been working with d3 for years, this was the first show where they switched to the new pro range. José Menendez of Darmah explains: “We immediately identified the large amount of HD layers and the need for many content transfers. Based on this assessment and our experience with d3, we felt it was a good opportunity to showcase the new pro range machines. The d3 4x4pro has 2x 10Gbit/sec ports so we could move content at lightning speed, this is for us a great improvement from the previous range. We also received an HD-SDI from the broadcast truck, which worked perfecly with the input cards on the d3 4x4pro systems. We ended up with a network of one d3 4x4pro master machine, four d3 4x4pro slaves and one d3 4U v2.5 as an understudy, which turned out to be a very solid solution for this show.”
Workflow
Darmah’s experienced team made diagrams upon starting the d3 project to understand the workflow. The real-time 3D stage simulator could help collaboration, with producers and other parties being able to see progress every step on the way. Says Menendez: “By programming the show on separate machines before rehearsals, and then simply copying the file to the main machine in a few seconds we were able to save a lot of time. Combine that with d3’s capability to allow us to make changes in timeline layers without re-rendering of video content has just been phenomenal – d3 is a total problem-solver, and our client was thrilled with the results.”
Credits
d3 Server provider: Darmah
d3 Project setup: Darmah
Projection and LED setup: Darmah
Lead Technician: Darmah
d3 Operator: LuminousFX
Gear
1x d3 4x4pro (master)
4x d3 4x4pro (slave)
1x d3 4U v2.5 (understudy)
Projectors: 16x Barco FLM HD 20
LED: 320x FX-11; 115x FC-11; 110x FC-5; 45x F30
Pixled; 500x Barco Mistrips; 400x F-Bars
