For its latest, state-of-the-art mobile production trucks, named LYON-11 and LYON-12, Columbus, Ohio-based Lyon Video wanted to make sure that HD format flexibility was front and center. That's important because it works with a variety of clients that all have different needs and requirements. They could be producing a 1080i shoot for NBC Sports one day and a 720p production for ABC/ESPN the next, so their equipment must support both.

To further support its strategy of flexibility, Lyon Video wanted to be able to work in whatever venue their clients needed them at, regardless of whether it was pre-wired with triax of fiber. To that end, Lyon Video began testing the Grass Valley™ 3G Transmission system in 2011 for ESPN and the University of Texas' Longhorn Network located in Austin.

Among the services that Sky Racing offers both broadcasters and the wagering public in Australia is real-time thoroughbred, greyhound, and harness racing coverage aggregated from a large number of venues disparately located across the country and internationally. The aim of the presentation is to be clear and for it to be easily understood. Last year alone, it helped televise and stream online more than 83,000 races. To do this requires a vast amount of staff coordination and the most advanced live video production and distribution technology.

Carl Petch, Chief Engineer at Sky Racing, based in Frenchs Forrest (north Sydney), said with the ever-growing number of platforms—TV, Internet, and mobile—his staff has to support, the need for efficiency and fast turnaround times has never been stronger. To do this cost-effectively, the company has become the first commercial customer for the new Grass Valley™ STRATUS™ software-based media workflow application framework that brings a number of Sky Racing’s content creation departments under the same graphical user interface.

Independent rock bands put a lot of effort into creating and performing their music. These days they also work hard to promote their projects on the Internet and social media platforms, using the latest audio and video production tools. With the plethora of bands jockeying for attention, it's the only way to get noticed. That is the strategy used by a guitarist Davide Stefanini and his established Pink Floyd tribute band "Comfortably Numb," which regularly records and tours around Italy and parts of Europe.

Stefanini is a former video editor for a major Italian broadcast network who clearly understands the power of video. After years of cutting a variety of short and long-form programs with the Grass Valley™ EDIUS® multiformat nonlinear editing software as a television professional, his dedication to the band and to producing compelling video is equally strong. And his editing platform of choice continues to be EDIUS. Although he usually works in SD and HD, the latest version (6.0) of EDIUS includes the ability to work in resolutions up to 1080p50/60 3G with AVCHD content natively, with no transcoding required. And he can preview his effects in real time.

As an experienced multichannel service provider, SES Platform Services GmbH (formerly ASTRA Platform Services, a division of SAS) has built a thriving business helping content owners distribute their programs across Europe. Based on its success in Europe, SES has been expanding its activities worldwide.

SES uses the Nexus integrated playout, Cobalt automation, and PTS scheduling software for all of the playout services it offers: starting from an entry level Playout Basic up to its high-end Playout Pro solution. Grass Valley has taken the Nexus technology and enhanced it with new features in the K2 Edge Integrated Playout System.

In June 2009, when Meredith Corp. management decided to turn over the newscasts of KVVU (FOX5), the local FOX affiliate in Las Vegas, to a Grass Valley™ Ignite™ scalable automated production system, the move was met with a bit of apprehension. At the time, the technology was still fairly unchartered waters for a small station like KVVU and it was clear that to make the transition work, all of the staff would have to be on board. Yet, if they were successful, they'd be able to work smarter and produce their newscasts in a very different and efficient way.

"Two years later, we couldn't be happier with how well the system has performed and how easily our staff took to it and made our newscasts better," said Gary Prager, Production Manager at KVVU. "Because of the Ignite system, we are now able to do more than before we got the system—an additional full hour of news."

In the spring of 2011, Merrill Richardson, Director of Facilities for the Lexington Center Corporation (LCC)—a private, non-profit agency of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG)—was looking for an advanced, high-definition (HD) video record and playback system. The goal was a system that would help his production team distribute content as digital files throughout Lexington, Kentucky's famous Rupp Arena (home to University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball) in the most efficient way, while providing a great fan experience.

Richardson chose the Grass Valley™ K2 Summit™ media server platform and a Grass Valley K2 Dyno™ Replay System (which is made up of an intuitive, tactile K2 Dyno Replay Controller tightly linked to a K2 Summit server). From a central video production control room inside Rupp Arena, the new server system also feeds seven other AV systems—including a new IPTV system for the numerous concession stands located throughout the building.

With the termination of federal Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP) grants, many local PBS member stations like WGBH in Boston—whose award-winning programs are widely viewed nationwide and around the world—have had to look carefully at what they spend in order to get the most value. It's a tough challenge because, even with less money, the station must continue to achieve its mission of serving the community with locally focused educational programming.

One of the last PTFP grants made before the program ended was awarded to WGBH to help continue its mission. In early 2011, WGBH decided to migrate its production capabilities to an Ignite™ automated production system from Grass Valley™. The system allows a single operator to take on several roles required during production.

While taking a class on the Italian Renaissance Morgan Martini got the inspiration for a film, based on the true story of Carlo Gesualdo—the Prince of Venosa who wrote songs of redemption and salvation. When she proposed the initial idea to her professors, some recommended that she might want to try something "a little less complicated," but not one to shy away from a challenge, Martini found herself on a mission to tell the story and was eager to see it through.

Once the idea was solidified in her mind getting it on the screen took patience, hard work, and the right technology to bring it to fruition. For Martini, that meant editing on a system she knew well: the Grass Valley™ EDIUS® multiformat nonlinear editing system.

New Century Productions (NCP), in Göteborg, Sweden, is well versed in the production of high-definition (HD) live sports and entertainment events and is one of the "go to" production services suppliers when a major event occurs in Sweden or abroad. In 2011 alone, NCP produced: the 2011 World Cup of Biathlon, in Antholz, Italy; 2011 World Cup Alpine Skiing, in Are, Sweden; World Cup Cross Country, in Sweden; and the 2011 Wimbledon tennis tournament, in London UK (supplying the national feed for Japanese broadcaster NHK), Diamond League, and classical music and opera.

NCP tackled its first 3D production, working at the Royal Swedish Opera House in Stockholm to televise a live staging of the comedic opera Zémire et Azor in stereoscopic HD (dual 1080i signals). NCP parked a 3D-capable OB van outside the Opera House to handle the production, which used numerous LDK 8000 Elite multiformat HD cameras, the Kayak™ HD video production switcher and the T2™ iDDR.

Today's college video production departments are challenged with providing fans attending college athletics games and major live events and concerts with the same high-end production values they see on national television, but with limited budgets and mostly unskilled (student) operators. Despite this, Hall of Music Productions at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, has continued to captivate fans with the latest in video production equipment from Grass Valley™.

Al Caudullo of Al Caudullo Productions writes of his experiences shooting in the rugged highlands of western Mongolia using an entirely 3D-based workflow, including working with the new EDIUS® 3D Preview Version NLE software from Grass Valley™.

"During our on-site production, we stretched EDIUS's capabilities to the limit and beyond. It never failed us. We used it in multiple environments, in everything from rugged Mongolian gers to dung-roofed housing. Our immediate concern was to be able to download volumes of 3D footage not only from our cameras and recorders, but to be able to check our dailies. This was to make sure our framing and 3D were within spec and keeping within the storyline. EDIUS was a marvel to work with, easily creating stereo pairs and stereo adjusting using only the Toshiba laptop and a 24-inch LG 3D CinemaDisplay monitor. It was a hit with our hosts and the eagle trainers who flocked around the screen in 3D glasses and adapted to watching 3D as naturally as they would call to their eagles."

University of Oklahoma (OU) stands out both for its athletic prowess and its ability to cover its various sports teams with the latest HD video production gear. For the ultimate in production flexibility, SoonerVision uses two Kayenne panels—a 3 M/E for the new control room, and a 2 M/E which replaced the Kayak (which was traded in to Grass Valley) in the original control room.

Carlsberg, one of the world's most well-known premium beers and the 4th largest brewery group in the world, is investing heavily to reposition its brand for future growth. Internally, it is using the latest video production tools and technologies at various locations around the world to keep its growing workforce informed of this and other company developments.

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is the world's biggest non-sporting live TV event and a strong household name among hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

The ESC 2011 was produced and broadcast in high-definition 1080i with 5.1 surround sound and two-channel stereo. A key role in the production of the ESC 2011 were four Grass Valley™ LDK 8000 Elite cameras with wireless adapters.

In Australia, two rival television broadcasters have come together to pool their resources and develop one of the world's most advanced playout centers: MediaHub Australia. ABC and WIN developed the requirements specification of the center, and then turned to the Grass Valley™ Systems Group to turn it into a reality.

Located in a western suburb of Sydney, it is a single, very large-scale digital playout facility. It was designed and built from scratch to deliver cost-effective, enhanced delivery services that will meet the challenges of the future by increasing the programming capability and capacity of these two Australian broadcasters.

In 2008, Lindenwood University, in St. Charles, MO, built new production and teaching facilities, now called The Charter Communications High-Definition Studio, to support its educational mission. The state-of-the-art HD facility includes a main control room—based around a Grass Valley™ 2 M/E Kayak™ HD switcher.

Because of its renowned reliability, that Grass Valley equipment has been working steadily ever since it was installed, getting a "full workout," by the hundreds of student operators in the Communications program.

For its latest investment project, Al Kass commissioned two new large outside broadcast trucks to augment its existing fleet with large-scale production capabilities. Although the units will be based in Doha, the expectation is that they will travel throughout the region, and particularly to neighboring countries including the United Arab Emirates.

The two trucks are being built for Al Kass by Grass Valley at its outside broadcast systems center of excellence in Weiterstadt, Germany.

Each time MTVG builds a new truck reliability in its chosen technology is key. MTVG relies on the Kayenne™, Kalypso™, and Kayak™ video production switchers, LDK Series HD cameras, and Trinix™ NXT multiformat routers to help produce more than 4,000 sports and entertainment events each year.

Over the past seventeen years, Mobile TV Group and Colorado Studios (which builds MTVG's trucks) have designed and built a wide variety of SD and HD mobile production trucks, which now cover both the home and away games of about half of the NBA, NHL, and MLB teams in the US.

Before making any decisions on a new switcher, the engineering staff at Nine Network Australia conducted the proper due diligence and researched four other manufacturers' products, just to be sure they were making the right decision.

Gary Newnham, Video Switcher Director at Nine Network Australia, sat down and played with the new Kayenne Video Production Center at several trade shows and it had instant visual appeal for him. With its RGB buttons, OLED displays, and ergonomic design, it looked ready to take on the 21st century.

When your company is producing two to three live sports and entertainment events per day (and up to ten per week), virtually all year round, you don't have time for equipment failures or unhappy clients. That's why Trio Video, a premiere video production services company based in Chicago, Ill., relies on Grass Valley™ cameras, production switchers, and routers to keep their projects up and running.

Although it began broadcasting HD programming in 2008, Thirteen/WNET, America's most-watched public television station, completed the migration of all of its production operations to HD in January of 2011.

To do this correctly, they had to carefully expand the existing signal distribution infrastructure to accommodate more HD content and a significant but decreasing amount of SD shows as well.

Game Creek has used Grass Valley video production switchers for many of the most high-profile live sports projects—such as the Daytona 500, college basketball and football, professional NBA basketball (including the NBA finals) and NFL football. The company understands the value of reliability and capturing the moment as it happens. In live sports production there are no second chances.

As it continues to help its clients produce these type of high-profile live sporting events, Game Creek remains committed to Grass Valley switching technology and will deploy the latest Grass Valley Kayenne™ Video Production Center switcher on its new trucks going forward.

The Broadcast and AV division of RodeoHouston is responsible for producing every video element that is displayed throughout Reliant Park in Houston, Texas. This includes high-quality content supporting all of the thousands of video displays of all sizes located within Reliant Stadium, Reliant Arena, Reliant Center, and the Reliant Astrodome.

For their main event, the three-week Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, they use Grass Valley Kayenne switchers to produce coverage of the rodeo and all of the activities surrounding it. Segments are displayed on eight large screens in Reliant Stadium, hundreds of monitors located throughout Reliant Park, and the Fox Sports Network.

Red Union Films is an independent movie production company, based in the north-west of England. It enjoyed great success with its 2009 feature film Awaydays, and has just completed the adaptation of another Kevin Sampson novel, Powder, about the rise and fall of a rock band.

For Awaydays, Red Union Films invested in its own editing facilities, based on the Grass Valley™ EDIUS, and this platform continued to do sterling service on Powder. Owning their own EDIUS systems has enabled Red Union Films to respond to all the creative variables that happen in independent filmmaking, while allowing them to maintain complete control over production from the beginning to the very end.

XL Video, an award-winning provider of video equipment and services, supports many of the world's most high-profile live sports and entertainment events. When its equipment and technicians arrive on site, things get done quickly and correctly. There are no second chances.

That's why the premiere rental and staging company—with locations in Europe, Russia, the UK, and the US—continues to update its growing inventory with the latest standardand high-definition video production equipment from Grass Valley™. XL Video recently added several new Grass Valley LDK Series SD and HD cameras, Kayak™ video production switchers, and six T2 intelligent digital disk (iDDR) recorders to its arsenal.

Wedding days are always special, but if you are the heir to a throne, you can expect even more attention. In June of 2010, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden married Daniel Westling. It was the first royal wedding in Sweden for more than 30 years, and interest was high, at home and abroad.

For the wedding day itself, three of Mediatec's largest, double-expanding OB vans were parked outside the Royal Palace. At the heart of each was a Grass Valley™ Kayenne™ Video Production Center switcher, bringing all the feeds together and giving the directors the creative freedom to add multiple layers of graphics and effects, as required. Apart from some remote cameras in tight spaces in the church, all the pictures came from Grass Valley LDK 8000 Elite cameras.

To develop skills and understanding of the growing phenomenon of stereographic 3D production, Abraham Joffe set himself a real challenge: shooting Australia's first 3D wedding video, which is now believed to be one of the world's first multicam 3D wedding shots.

Joffe had created a deadline for posting which only gave the post crew a couple of days to produce an edit to screen at the premiere. What made this possible was sticking with their current 2D editing platform, the Grass Valley™ EDIUS. EDIUS has good support for 3D, and it meant they were completely familiar and comfortable with the way it works.

Boxing fans watching The Legend Returns pay-per-view (PPV) fight between Evander "The Real Deal" Holyfield and Francois "The White Buffalo" Botha—along with several undercard fights—on Saturday, April 10, 2010 were treated to a captivating high-quality, multicamera production that captured the action of Holyfield's 8th round decision from virtually every angle. Little did they know that the production team that night on site at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, included a small crew, six standard-definition (SD) cameras, and a single, compact Grass Valley™ Indigo™ AV Mixer.

MotoGP is a fast-paced, thrilling sport, taking the world's best professional motorcycle riders and machines and racing them on the toughest tracks around the world. It's the responsibility of worldwide TV rights holder Dorna Sports to make sure that for each race, the fans at home and in the bars and pubs around the world are not disappointed.

With a full-time staff of around 150, plus as many as 200 more production freelancers, Dorna relies exclusively on the Grass Valley™ K2 Dyno™ Replay System for the instant replays for each race.

Fox Sports Latin America's headquarters is located in Mexico and is considered the most advanced facility in Latin America. Fox Sports chose Grass Valley™ products because they deliver extra value from content creation, acquisition, and production through playout.

Equipment installation was divided in two stages. First to be installed was the Aurora™ news production suite, K2 Summit™ media servers, Concerto™ routing, Encore™ facility control software, the Maestro™ multi-channel master control and channel branding system, and hundreds of GeckoFlex™ signal conversion modules. The second stage of the project saw the installation of two Kayenne™ 2.5 M/E Video Production Center switchers and 12 LDK 3000 HD cameras for Fox Sports Latin America's two new production studios.

As a veteran news editor on staff at an NBC affiliate station in the central New England area, Kathryn O'Leary likes to work fast. When there's a breaking story to tell, she doesn't have time for technology that bogs her down or makes her wait. That's why she's a big fan of the Grass Valley™ EDIUS® nonlinear editing system.

When her station's news department made the migration to nonlinear editing in the spring of 2008, they chose the latest version of EDIUS primarily because of the system's affordability and real-time performance. The EDIUS software also integrated well with the station's newly installed news production system.

ORF, the national public service broadcaster in Austria and one of the first K2 server users, now has one of the largest K2 server installations in the world with approximately 320 K2 operational playout channels located in its Vienna headquarters and in its ten regional studios.

ORF produces a lot of in-house content, with seven large production studios in Vienna as well as its ten regional broadcast studio facilities. It has been a continuing project to streamline production costs through the use of new technologies, which includes moving as quickly as possible to tapeless production and file-based workflows.

BSkyB, the leading satellite broadcaster in the UK and Ireland, has long been a pioneer in its coverage of sports, bringing a new style and engagement to its audiences. BSkyB needed a better way of getting the Sky Sports' graphics material out to location—and to reduce or eliminate its use of tape—to get the best out of its graphics on the road.

Although BSkyB looked into servers from a variety of manufacturers, the Grass Valley™ K2 Solo™ media server—which was under development at the time—looked extremely promising. The workgroup was also encouraged by the willingness of Grass Valley to accept its input during the server's development, to make sure it really did do what they wanted.

Andy Glossop has a need for speed. Whether it's watching his beloved motor sports racing for pleasure or editing television sports programming for the UK's popular Channel 5, he likes things to happen quickly—give it to him fast and furious!

As owner and executive producer of AMG Television Productions, Glossop understands the unique requirements of digital video production and the increasing demands his clients place on him. It's this need for real-time processing and effects in order to turn around completed projects quickly that led him to use the latest version of Grass Valley™ EDIUS® editing software. Glossop is such a fan of EDIUS, he's used every version of the NLE software since 1998.

Creative Technology is an internationally recognized professional audio visual staging services provider with locations in the US, UK, Germany, Dubai, China, and Singapore. They have worked with many of the major automobile manufacturers around the world to help announce new products in the most imaginative way. Along with all of the exotic cars and prototype vehicles on display at the annual North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) convention, held in Detroit, the event is also renown for its sophisticated live multimedia presentations that vie for attendees' attention.

To automatically play back pre-recorded video on large screen displays at the 2010 NAIAS convention at Detroit's Cobo Hall in January, Creative Technology used a unique, file-based digital disk recorder—the T2™ intelligent digital disk recorder (iDDR) from Grass Valley™ to drive numerous high-definition video screens in support of the recurring live presentations.

Like most television stations making the move to digital in 2007, EPTV was cautious. With studio and field cameras from multiple vendors, EPTV realized it needed a flexible news editing system that would address different acquisition and storage formats. EPTV also wanted a system that could be upgraded, in time, from SD to HD.

Fitting easily into an analog, SD, or HD workflow, the Grass Valley™ EDIUS® editing system made the grade. EDIUS also edits XDCAM and P2-based materials in HD and SD—seamlessly.

In 2007, EPTV began producing one its landmark shows, "Terra da Gente" ("Land of the People"), in high definition. That same year, the station group also began using EDIUS as its standard for news editing.

Efficient graphics production for HD applications was the goal of the Technical Operations department at Nippon Television Network (NTV) as they ventured to try a new workflow leveraging the compression benefits of the Grass Valley™ HQ Codec. Not only did the new workflow solve several problems, it greatly streamlined production while maintaining superb image quality rivaling uncompressed graphics. In fact, their work has never looked better.

In adopting a new workflow for HD graphics production, Technical Operations identified their objective: reduce file size while maintaining superb image quality to enable efficient production. One way to meet this objective was to use a compression codec, but this was unprecedented at the department.

Based on the best-selling novel by Kevin Sampson, the independent, cult film Awaydays was shot in 2008 in and around Liverpool, but is set 30 years earlier. Awaydays was shot primarily with a Panasonic VariCam for off-speed shots and 25 fps production, with some scenes using 16 mm film for ramp shots and a Phantom camera for very slow-motion. In the mix, a variety of other digital formats were also used.

To handle the editing of all of these formats, Red Union Films' Post Production Supervisor and Partner David Harry chose the EDIUS® nonlinear editing platform and NX boards from Grass Valley™ for real-time mixed-format editing, including uncompressed video. This allowed a very fast, efficient, and creative post production process.

Takenaka offers a unique brand of event staging—called LiveTechnical—which uses state-of-the-art technology to create mind-blowing visual extravaganzas. The Star Festival 2009, an event co-produced by Takenaka in Osaka, was one of their most spectacular events of the year, perfectly demonstrating their technical and creative prowess in this field. When planning this prestigious event, the LiveTechnical team wanted an exciting stage show enriched by more high-definition imagery than they'd ever used before. They wanted to use video in new and exciting ways.

In addition to providing crystal-clear HD video and rock-solid performance, the solution also had to be easy to use and compatible with the other equipment they were using. Grass Valley™ T2™ fitted the bill perfectly. One of the key features of the T2 iDDR is its intuitive user interface. This meant that VJs at the event had live control over two independent HD playback channels. Compatibility with switchers, professional projectors, and other staging equipment is also no problem, thanks to HD-SDI connectivity.

The Bill is a long-running and very popular police procedural drama produced by Talkback Thames for the UK's ITV network. Early in 2009 the decision was made to change the requirement to a weekly, one hour high-definition drama for a 9:00 pm/21.00 timeslot. That called for Talkback Thames to re-equip its production capabilities to upgrade to HD, and as part of that they looked at new cameras.

One of the characteristics of the way The Bill worked in SD was that Talkback Thames used system cameras recording to separate devices, rather than the camcorders that might typically be used for drama. Having looked carefully at all the options available as they moved to HD, Talkback Thames decided to maintain the same approach, and placed an order for five Grass Valley™ LDK 8000 Elite cameras, which record onto the Panasonic P2 format.