COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, staged at B&W Halls here, included semi-finals on May 6 and May 8 and finals on May 10. The international singing talent competition was noted for its strong, masculine look this year — without forgoing the gold, glitter and glamour for which it’s known — and a cube-shaped central stage. Mediatec Solutions relied upon a visual system that included d3 Technologies’ 4U v2.5 media server at its core. The contest was seen by an estimated 180 million viewers in 45 countries.
More details from d3 Technologies (www.d3technologies.com):
Named the Official Event Supplier for the ESC 2014, AV rental house Mediatec Solutions Sweden partnered with d3 Technologies to provide a powerful media server solution for all the LED and projection content at the B&W Hallerne venue, a former shipyard.
The media-rich show featured a diamond-shaped stage featuring LED strips with individual pixel control, a huge wall of LED light cubes (with 70 glass display surfaces projected by worlds largest Barco HDQ2k40) configured like the prow of a ship, an enormous 110×12-metre (1170 sqm) LED screen that acted as a backdrop, and 169m2 of the Mediatec tecViz BS10 Interactive LED floor.
“You give the content creators a totally new point of view in show creation when they can use a real interactive touch LED floor,” says Niclas Ljung, Manager Technology of Mediatec.
Selected for its real-time 3D pre-visualization, advanced mapping features, its ability to handle a limitless amount of layers on the time-line and to sequence directly to the beat of a song, the d3 4U media server delivered an efficient and rock solid performance for the 37 participating artists. Niclas Ljung of Mediatec, and David Bajt, an external video consultant and d3 specialist, worked together on the d3 system design, with David setting up the d3 project based on construction drawings, generating templates for the content designers and looking after the workflow.
The d3 system comprised a master and four slaves, plus four understudies to guarantee redundancy; the big system handled content over a network delivering distinctive graphical and video elements for each artist in the spotlight. Searing flames and undulating stylized wings played across all surfaces during the winning performance of “Rise Like a Phoenix” by Austrian contestant Conchita Wurst.
“The d3 4U didn’t miss a beat,” says Ljung. “The d3 media server proved itself time after time on a huge and complex production.”
Head operator Pontus “Bullen” Lagerbielke and assistant operator Luke Collins were responsible for programming the show, and Rowan Pitts and Morgan Brown were the d3 system technicians on site.
