This year marked the new era of remote broadcast experience, with Seven Network, a major Australian commercial free-to-air television network and the original broadcaster of Summer and Winter Olympic Games since 1956, working with Australia’s CT Group, part of the NEP Live Events, to create a virtual production environment with a top-end LED wall powered by Brompton Technology Tessera processing.
“CT provided LED backdrops for Seven Network’s sports hostings during the pandemic when travelling to venues wasn’t possible,” says Michael Judges, Senior Project Manager for CT Australia & New Zealand. “As a result of this positive experience, we built a template with the client which they were subsequently able to use on the Tokyo and Beijing host broadcasts.”
Judges explains that for this project, Seven Network wanted the highest resolution LED panels available to provide the ultimate background for the broadcast. “This resulted in a high pixel density, so we used two 4K outputs from a media server into two Brompton Tessera SX40 processors to manage this,” he adds.
CT installed Unilumin 1.8mm LED panels with an overall screen size of 19.5m by 2.5m, curved around a 5m radius. Also deployed are four active and four back up Tessera SX40 processors in redundancy mode, as well as eight Tessera XD 10G data distribution units offering the team greater piece of mind and ensuring a stress-free day-to-day workflow.
“Tessera processing is very robust, and the redundancy system works well,” explains Judges. “Additionally, Brompton processors are easy to use and provide powerful features for managing screen brightness and colour on camera. The panels were run in the specific Operating Mode that reduces panel brightness while still maintaining usable bit depth, which is essential for television.”
According to Judges,the client was very pleased with the result and would like to continue working with CT on other projects this year.
“All high-quality images and videos looked great on the broadcast and the presenters were able to be very close to the screen without causing any moiré effect,” Judges concludes. “Following the success of this project, Seven Network is going to utilise the entire system for other televised broadcasts during 2022. This speaks volumes about the high quality of all the elements within the system, including the industry renowned Brompton Tessera processors.”
