Congratulations to the Melbourne Demons for taking home the win at the AFL Grand Final over the weekend!
 
Gravity Media provided Umpire Communications with our SportsCom system for the AFL Grand Final. This is Gravity Media’s fifth season supporting AFL with the SportsCom Communications solution.
 
The coaching staff and timekeepers on location were also provided with Remote Communications via ClearCom IP based solutions to the ARC (AFL Review Centre) so they could communicate with the team in Melbourne and assess any score reviews that may arise during the match, as well as remote mobile solutions via ClearCom Agent IC application.
 
To find out how we can help with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com

ALAMEDA, USA – July 29, 2021 – UK-based Gravity Media, a leading global provider of complex live broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors – has made further significant investment into its real-time communication systems for live event broadcasts. The new equipment meets increased demand for Gravity Media’s services, particularly for live sports. It will initially support a project with long-time client, UEFA European Soccer League, before being made available to other customers worldwide. 

The purchase includes 20 new V-Series™ Iris Panels, in addition to Gravity Media’s existing Clear-Com Eclipse® HX Digital Matrix within their London facility, as well as  Station-IC™ Virtual Desktop Client licenses. The Station-IC client will enable Gravity Media’s expert technical teams to create a completely scalable intercom user station, which includes talkback both on desktop and for working remotely; something that’s essential given ongoing global travel restrictions and decentralised live production. 

Also included is a new Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) license based on Clear-Com’s LQ® Series of IP Interfaces. This marks a shift away from legacy Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) communication standards to SIP. The new investment is due to the phasing out of ISDN communications in the UK and to enhance the overall scalability, quality and control of Gravity Media’s communication systems in the IP space. 

This investment builds on Gravity Media’s previous purchases of Clear-Com equipment in 2019 when Gravity Media purchased several of Clear-Com’s LQ Series IP Interface Devices to enable IP communications for roving presentation teams across France. Both these and the Agent-IC® Mobile App licenses enable IP and app-based communications to Gravity Media’s Eclipse HX digital matrix intercom, enabling talkback from smart devices over 3G, 4G, LTE and WiFi networks. which has proven invaluable during COVID-19 restrictions. 

Nick Symes, Director of Technology at Gravity Media in EMEA commented: “This additional purchase of Clear-Com equipment is further evidence that we’re committed to continually adapting our workflows and facilities to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Gravity Media has a longstanding relationship with Clear-Com, thanks to its cutting-edge, dependable live communication technology offering. We look forward to continuing to deploy their technology to deliver flawless experiences for our global client base.” 

Image – Sydney Mardi Gras Gallery

Over the weekend of Saturday 6 March, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade took place at Sydney’s Cricket Ground. Against all the challenges, the teams involved successfully and safely produced the largest arts and cultural event in the world since the beginning of the global pandemic. With seven headline performances and 5,000 of the most incredible parade participants, all showing the beauty and diversity of the LGBTQI+ community. 

SBS broadcasted the entire event live – so that revellers from across Australia can tune-in and celebrate from the comfort of their homes. 

Gravity Media provided outside broadcast services, using outside broadcast truck HD8 for the main production. The Gravity Media Event Communications team also looked after all “Show” communications for the parade and Spidercam was in production at the annual event. 

HD8 is a 4K, double expanding super truck that extends to 16.1m when fully expanded. It’s a high end, extremely versatile production facility, complete with dedicated vision, engineering, VTR and audio areas. To find out how Gravity Media can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com  

The wait was finally over as the Supercars Championships returned for the Repco Mt Panorama 500 at Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia.   

There was no rest over the weekend as the Gravity Media team provided all the technical broadcast facilities capturing the action from the first circuit of 2021.   

Onsite, our services included outside broadcast trucks HD5 as Main Production & Fox Sports and HD9 as overflow & Ch7 unilateral, full track camera coverage, pit lane wireless and specialist cameras, in-car camera services (fully integrated 10 x TX paths with 120+ cameras in all categories), broadcast & virtual GFX, and team radios.   

New to the services from Gravity Media for 2021, is the increased support of technology for ‘Motorsports’ the onsite governing body who manage all race adjudication, with a centralised service in Race Control. 

EVS Xeebra sits at the base of our newly launched GRS (Gravity Review System), and an enhanced communications system in Pit Lane with Riedel Bolero at the coal face fully integrating with all other UHF and fibre borne communications.  

Meanwhile, Gravity Media was also engaged to look after Event Communications, providing a complete onsite non-broadcast communications solution covering 40 duplex circuits with 446 UHF handsets.   

You can now watch the highlights from across the weekend here and to find out how Gravity Media can help you with your next production, email enquiries@gravitymedia.com  

On Sunday 16 February, the Fire Fight Australia concert was held at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney to raise money for the National Bushfire Relief. Thousands of people gathered at the stadium and Gravity Media facilitated not only the host coverage in UHD, but also serviced both the Seven Network and Foxtel.

Fire Fight Australia featured performances from artists including Queen and Adam Lambert, k.d. lang, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ronan Keating and more.

On Channel Seven, 4.7 million viewers united for the concert with the live coverage peaking at 2.04 million views for Queen’s and Adam Lambert’s reprisal of the legendary 1985 Live Aid performance.

Gravity Media proudly supported this event by offering our broadcast services including event communications, outside broadcast facilities, crew, office space, spidercam and edit suites.

Fire Fight Australia has so far raised over $9.5 million for bushfire relief and you can still donate here. Your contribution goes directly to the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal (FRRR) to help them support communities on the long road ahead by providing much-needed funding for locally identified needs throughout the recovery and rebuilding process.

~ Popular wireless intercom system is ideal for broadcast, entertainment, live production and theatre applications ~

Watford, UK, 1 October 2019 – Gearhouse Broadcast, the Gravity Media-owned supplier of technical facilities, crew and services used to capture the world’s most watched content, has bought multiple Riedel Bolero wireless intercom systems for its burgeoning Event Communications business. This significant kit investment is in response to the growing market demand for the Bolero system that is capable of supporting 10 beltpacks per antenna and up to 100 antennas in a single deployment. It also highlights Gearhouse’s vendor agnostic approach, with it now able to offer its customers a choice of either the Bolero or fellow class-leading solution, Clear-Com’s FreeSpeak II, alongside its in-house expertise and support.

In total, Gearhouse has bought 7x AES67 cards, 50x Bolero beltpacks, 10x Bolero Active Antennas plus switches and the associated accessories, instantly making it a major player for the rental of this product at scale for medium and large events. The popular solution offers a matrix panel on the user’s hip, Bluetooth integration and can become a handheld radio. It delivers exceptional coverage, even in congested RF environments, as well as superior audio quality and clarity.

“Our industry leading event communications expertise is now supported by being able to offer a choice of the latest technology that our customers are demanding,” said Mitchell Lockyer-Lane, Business Development Manager at Gearhouse Broadcast (Australia). “Riedel’s Bolero solution was the obvious choice for us and with it we can continue to expand beyond the traditional broadcast market to service other sectors such as live production, entertainment and theatre.”

Discussing the evaluation process, Mitchell added: “We trialled the solution earlier this year at a major Australian sporting event and were extremely impressed with its performance. Its seamless integration with our other Riedel products, such as the Artist matrix frames, means that the on-site set-up time can be drastically reduced, resulting in significant cost savings.” 

Gearhouse Broadcast’s Event Communications team provides the people, inventory and know-how to support any size or scale of event, from the smallest two-way radio hire to a multi-venue, multi-platform communications solution.

The Gearhouse Broadcast Australia team recently supported the EJ Whitten 2019 Legends game at AAMI Park in Melbourne. Held on Friday 30 August, the game saw some of the greatest AFL champions take to field alongside a number of celebrities to compete in a state of origin challenge to raise funds for the EJ Whitten Foundation.

EJ Whitten is considered by many as one of the most complete footballers ever to play the game, and he was also a larger-than-life character loved for his caring nature, unique character and common touch. Following his early passing in 1995, the EJ Whitten Foundation was set up to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer. Since its inception, the Foundation has raised over $13.5 million for men’s health programs and prostate cancer research and treatment – contributing to the EJ Whitten Foundation Prostate Cancer Research Centre at Epworth and a number of other research facilities and treatment centres.

Gearhouse Broadcast is delighted to have supported the 2019 Legends game, deploying its ground-breaking SportsCom Umpire communication system free of charge. SportsCom provides communications between on-field and off-field match officials, generating content to be used in the broadcast mix, as well as providing seamless communications between the ground and remote match officials potentially based anywhere in the world. The Gearhouse team included Andrew Henderson and Jess May.

The Vans US Open of Surfing is a week-long surfing competition held annually in Huntington Beach, California. Generally held on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier, the US Open is part of the qualification process for the World Surf League (WSL), and is a WSL QS 10,000 event. It is the largest surfing competition in the world, and also includes skateboarding and BMX competitions – making it the world’s largest action sports event.

The Gearhouse Broadcast US team provided the entire facility across surf, skate and bike. It’s the 10^th time we’ve covered the event, and this year we had a record 25 cameras broadcasting live every day on Fox, as well as streaming worldwide.

For the surf venue, the team deployed Gearhouse’s Flypack A, which consisted of a full control room and audio room being built out. Equipment included four Hitachi SK1200 cameras with box lenses, one super slow-mo camera, two POVs, two Hitachi RF cameras, two EVS XT3s and ten wireless FreeSpeak beltpacks.

For the skate/BMX venue, we deployed Flypack B, which comprised a full control room, audio room and post-production room. Equipment included eight Hitachi SK1200 cameras, two RF Sony auto-follow cameras, two POVs, two Panasonic ROBOs, one EVS XT3 and ten wireless FreeSpeak beltpacks.

The team also supplied all the wireless communications and audio complement throughout the event, which ran from 26 July to 4 August. With surfing being California’s official state sport, an incredible 100,000 people turned out for the final Sunday to watch the climax of all the action. Good vibes.

At Gearhouse Broadcast, one of our key principles is that we always stock the very latest broadcast equipment. Our wireless transmission offering is a key part of that, and we’re currently in the middle of a major refurbishment programme to make sure we continue to offer a range of kit that best suits our worldwide operations. It’s a continuous upgrade programme, accelerated in recent months thanks to Ofcom’s compensation scheme for owners of 700 MHz radio mic equipment. Once that band has been cleared for mobile providers, some of our older kit will become obsolete.

So, we’re taking the opportunity to go increasingly digital. We’ve just bought more Sennheiser digital receivers and transmitters (including EM 6000-Dante dual-channel receivers, SKM 6000 hand-held radio mic transmitters, SK 6000 body-worn transmitters and EK6042 Hybrid battery receivers), with even more radio mics and IEM kit to follow later in the year. This means we’ll have more kit that can work globally, and that can cope with going from show to show without having to be swapped out or brought back to base for realignment.

Digital technology brings a number of benefits – not least that it can be used at higher channel densities than analogue equipment, which allows us to offer reliable radio mic coverage in increasingly hostile RF environments.

A perfect example of this is central Miami, where there’s highly restricted frequency availability. And as we’re there supporting the Miami Open tennis tournament this month, our entire first shipment will soon be put to the test.

Gearhouse was an early adopter of digital radio mics, over five years ago, and we’re delighted to be maintaining our position as one of the leading suppliers internationally.

Gearhouse Broadcast is supporting the Monash University Motorsports team in Melbourne, Australia, helping it to score first place at the Formula SAE-Australasia 2018. SAE-A is the third oldest mobility society in the world and was created to further educate the next generation about automotive engineering.

To cross the finish line first, Monash students needed focus on accelerating around the track, without the worry of technical hiccups. Gearhouse was able to remove the stress of communication for the team by supplying it with 20 Hytera PD782G two-way radios. The pre-programmed handheld units allow all frequencies to work seamlessly with one another and were licensed with the national body. Gearhouse also provided a technical contact in case any issues occurred onsite.

The radios kept the team running like clockwork, maintaining essential lines of communication between the pit crew, track team and points trackers. The robust kit also withstood the stresses of a season in the fast-paced pit lane environment.

Adrian Conder, Business Liaison at Monash said: “I’m proud to say that Monash Motorsport’s cars achieved Overall 1st place in the Combustion category and Overall 2nd place in the Electric category at Formula SAE-Australasia 2018! Gearhouse Broadcast was certainly instrumental in this as the radios provided allowed us to speak to each other around the track and keep the team running on time with different cars and team members in different locations.”

At the Formula SAE-Australasia 2018, Monash University won the LEAP Australia Award, Overall Internal Combustion Award and came second in the Overall Electric Vehicle category.  

Gearhouse Broadcast has a rich heritage when it comes to motorsport, having helped to capture some of the most prestigious races in the world, including Formula 1. In 2018 it delivered the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 – the largest supercars round of the season – live in 4K to Foxtel to debut its new 4K channel. Read about the full setup here.