NASHVILLE — Mobile production specialist TNDV recently brought two major, unrelated live worship events together from opposite coasts, unifying the weather-challenged productions to enhance both the in-venue and broadcast audience experience.The events, AzusaNow and UnitedCry, were held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and on the National Mall in Washington DC, respectively, in stormy spring conditions.
More details from TNDV (http://www.tndv.com):
TNDV provided turnkey HD production services at both events, each powered by mobile trucks and production crews operating multiple cameras; and associated video and audio infrastructures.
The unusual aspect is that the unrelated events discovered each other shortly before they took place. AzusaNow Producer Mark Herring of 3D Technical Directions inquired with TNDV president and owner Nic Dugger about the possibility of providing a live link between the two events to share content. Unbeknownst to them, a second TNDV crew was already onsite in DC preparing for the UnitedCry project.
“TNDV has worked with this client before, and as this project developed I knew we had to have their level of service and expertise on this show,” said Herring. “I knew that Nic and his team would bring their ‘A Game’ and do whatever it took to make it happen. Once the live DC link came up, I knew Nic and his team would make it work. In addition to the live link complexity, our audio infrastructure was massive. Between 13 different bands and countless speakers, audio routing was particularly intense. Between my audio lead, Kelly Epperson, TNDV’s audio engineering team, and our broadcast audio engineers, everything came out amazing.”
“Our mobile trucks are built for networking, as we commonly bring two trucks to large events to create a common, unified infrastructure for sharing video, audio and intercom signals across a centralized routing architecture,” said Dugger. “Adding a live, bi-directional link was essentially just a long-distance, wide-area extension of our traditional local-area networking approach to unifying multiple disparate production elements. In addition to contributing, managing and distributing video and audio signals, built-in Voice over IP connectivity allowed the crews to communicate as if the trucks were parked right next to each other as usual.”
TNDV established the live contribution via hardware from Teradek, LLC, with Corporate Events Online also helping to manage the live bi-directional link. The real-time HD feeds were encoded and decoded while communications were established over VoIP hardware interfaced with an RTS matrix intercom on each truck. That connectivity allowed the two trucks to transmit and receive special program content, including prayer recitals in English and Spanish, over a secure, bandwidth-rich connection to support optimum image quality.
TNDV customized the acquisition and production infrastructure at each location. The company’s flagship 40-foot expanding side Aspiration truck powered the AzusaNow event, which commemorates the historic Azusa Street Revival of 1906 where multiple races joined together to usher in the Pentecostal Movement. Taking place at the 93,607-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a former Olympic venue, TNDV captured the 15-hour event using nine Hitachi Kokusai SK-HD1000 cameras, and provided all television support for in-venue IMAG and live broadcasts, including GOD TV (satellite TV and OTT systems) and YouTube. Live feeds were also provided to local media covering the event.
The massive size of the venue made camera runs a challenge for TNDV, further hampered by the venue’s policy of limiting production teams to its antiquated cabling infrastructure. TNDV’s MultiDyne SMPTE-HUT fiber transceivers ensured that camera signals were cleanly transported to the on-board Aspiration crew for live switching and monitoring.
“We were not able to pull cables from truck to camera as we traditionally do, but the existing fiber infrastructure in the venue allowed us the opportunity to apply all our special adapters, including our MultiDyne fiber blocks, to power long-distance video and audio transport and enable a full audio split,” said Dugger. “We used this same signal transport strategy to power five large LED video boards inside the arena, and transmit all of our live broadcast feeds.”
Back in Washington DC, TNDV used its Elevation HD truck to power cameras, video and graphics playback, and audio mixing and multitracking. The event, held at the Lincoln Memorial, gathered more than 30,000 pastors and Christian Leaders to gather and pray for America’s future. The seven-hour event featured a lineup that repeatedly transitioned between musical acts and speakers, which made the attention to detail in lighting and audio especially significant. The UnitedCry broadcast was also distributed by TNDV and carried live on GOD TV.
In addition to the similar thematic content of each event, both crews were faced with weather-related production challenges from setup to teardown.
“We fought rain for three days straight in Los Angeles, where it rarely rains, and the snow, sleet and winds on the Mall on DC—very rare for April—were so bad they almost cancelled the event,” said Dugger. “Broadcast equipment generally doesn’t react kindly to operating in wintry weather or heavy downpours. The expertise of the production crews, and ability of the Hitachi cameras to adjust to inclement and dynamically changing weather conditions, ensured that these productions were delivered with the high quality our clients expect.”
