A team from Gearhouse Broadcast France was recently onsite at the Stade Mohammed V in Casablanca for the 2019–20 Arab Club Champions Cup. The Arab Club Champions Cup is effectively the Arabian Champions League – an annual regional football competition organised by the Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA) and contested by elite clubs from around the Arab world. The tournament is contested by a total of 38 teams: 19 from the Asian Football Confederation and 19 from the Confederation of African Football.
Qualifying took place from 18 to 25 August, and the competition proper runs from 20 August 2019 – 18 April 2020: a knockout format with home and away legs, until the final, which is a one-leg match played at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, Morocco.
Gearhouse France has been supplying a complete turnkey Host Broadcast production at the Stade Mohammed V, featuring nine cameras and including all the creative and operational crew. The first two matches of the knockout phase were Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya vs Al-Salmiya, and Shabab Al-Ordon vs Étoile du Sahel – both played on 29 August. The Gearhouse team will also cover the second legs on 24 September.
So, the Women’s World Cup has come to its conclusion with a 2-0 win for the USA against the Netherlands. It has been a fantastic month of football and we at Input Media are proud of what we have achieved and to be part of such a game changing event.
The impact made by the Women’s World Cup has exceeded all expectations. The production plans were ambitious – from the weeks and months in the build-up as we planned and prepared for it but all our work has paid off as we transported the audience at home to the heart of the action with our in-stadia presentation.
The BBC coverage of the Women’s World Cup on television and online, reached a record-breaking 28.1m people, that is 47% of the UK population. The semi-final between USA and England attracted a peak audience of 11.7m – the UK’s highest rating show of the year so far – more viewers than shows like Britain’s Got Talent, and the final episode of Line of Duty.
Ground-breaking too as all this was being produced remotely from our Manchester gallery. We have been at the heart of something quite special, and the BBC are delighted – not just with the rating figures – but the production that delivered beyond everyone’s expectations.
The Gearhouse Broadcast teams have returned to the UK following the successful completion of the UEFA Nations League semi-finals and final in Portugal.
Working out of the two tournament stadiums in Porto and Guimaraes, the project lasted two weeks, where Gearhouse was responsible for feed quality control and distribution in each venue’s Technical Operations Centre (TOC), as well as the FanTV production for the big screens.
Additionally, Gearhouse was responsible for the Host Commentary system at each venue, providing fully equipped commentary positions and IP codecs for rights holders around the world.
Coverage of the inaugural Nations League has capped off a busy period for our engineers, who’d worked on both the UEFA Europa League final and UEFA Champions League final the previous week. The team now have a brief respite to reacquaint themselves with family, before they head off to support the final EUFA TOC of the year – the Super Cup in Istanbul between Liverpool and Chelsea.
It’s a real shame that England went out of the Women’s World Cup on Tuesday night – beaten 2-1 by the holders USA. But every cloud has a silver lining as the saying goes! And while there’s obvious disappointment that the Lionesses are now just competing for the bronze medal in Saturday’s 3rd Place Play-Off against Sweden, we can rejoice in the fact that Input Media’s coverage on BBC1 on Tuesday attracted a peak audience of 11.7m – the UK’s highest rating show of the year so far.
That means Tuesday night’s game attracted more viewers than shows like Britain’s Got Talent, and the final episode of Line of Duty.
Needless to say the BBC are thrilled with these figures and absolutely delighted with Input Media’s coverage of the tournament, which is being produced remotely from our Manchester gallery. Input Media have been at the heart of something quite special, and we are proud of what we have achieved and delivered – not just over the past month covering the tournament. But in the weeks and months in the build-up as we planned and prepared for what’s been a fantastic piece of television to produce.
Women’s World Cup fever is gripping the nation. And Input Media stands proudly at the very heart of it. Our coverage of the tournament is being watched by record-breaking numbers of viewers, attracting new audiences and winning new converts to the women’s game.
On Sunday afternoon, around seven million viewers watched England’s 3-0 win over a bad-tempered Cameroon side that saw the Lionesses progress to the quarterfinals. Even more remarkably, nearly two million fans tuned in to BBC4 on Sunday evening to watch France beat Brazil 2-1.
As the BBC reacts to the growing interest in the tournament, Input Media has helped by providing additional facilities so that more knock-out games can be shown on the BBC’s main network channels, such as Norway v Australia on BBC2 on Saturday evening and Italy v China on Tuesday afternoon, another now scheduled for BBC2.
Interest and excitement is growing up and down the country as England progress towards the game’s biggest prize. As Gabby Logan’s builder will testify! https://bit.ly/2YdwRUY
There was something new and exciting and this weekend across the BBC. No – not just the second series of Killing Eve but the start of the 2019 Women’s World Cup – a ground-breaking production from Input Media which commenced on Friday on BBC1.
Ground-breaking because the Women’s World Cup is presented daily from pitch-side in France, but produced remotely out of our new Manchester facilities while fully supported by the technical wizards at the Production Centre in Askew Road.
It’s the second time we have produced the Women’s World Cup for the BBC. In 2015 the tournament was staged in Canada and we presented all games from our studio here in the Production Centre. But things are very different this time.
This edition of the tournament has been months in the planning – a complex, mind-blowing production involving scores of people moving around France. And an intricate remote production reliant on satellite and fibre feeds from pitch-side via Paris and London to our shiny new gallery in Manchester, a gallery built specifically for this project over the past three months and now home to the production team for the next few weeks. So Input Media’s team is now up and running – producing 27 live games from Manchester over the next month, most of which will be broadcast on either BBC1 or BBC2, with all other games in the tournament carried on BBC4 or delivered by us to Red Button.
Out in France there are three separate and dedicated teams made up of BBC presenters, pundits and commentators along with our producers, camera operators and sound and satellite engineers, criss-crossing the country to present from some of the 9 different stadiums in cities such as Paris, Nice, Le Havre, Grenoble and Montpelier. Our teams in France are chalking up thousands of miles using trains, planes and automobiles to get from one venue to another ready for the next show.
And while pitch-side presentation with remote production from Manchester will steal the headlines, behind the scenes our Production Centre and technical staff are absolutely integral and vital to it all – downlinking and on-passing feeds and providing the technical infrastructure, support and expertise to make it all possible.
Following a thrilling opening match in Paris where France faced South Korea delivering a colourful 4-0 defeat and a clear demonstration as to why they are one of the favourites to win the tournament, 48 hours later we turned to England v Scotland in Nice on Sunday afternoon – a fierce World Cup rivalry to match anything on offer in Killing Eve. A solid start for England with a 2-1 victory but Scotland’s hopes will be raised after a sound second half performance. Both teams are next in action on Friday 14th June so keep watching as the story unfolds…!
Two incredible semi-final comebacks have set up an all-English Champions League Final tomorrow, as Spurs take on Liverpool at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid. Gearhouse Broadcast will be there on the night too, with UEFA’s broadcast operations being built around our state-of-the-art new Grass Valley IP System.
Everything has been installed in the stadium’s Technical Operations Centre (TOC), which, being an IP setup, has involved a lot less cabling than traditional systems – making the installation quicker, simpler and more versatile. An IP core also means greater scalability and decentralised resources, as well as future-proofing the production to format changes.
The full kit list for this application – perhaps a world first in sport – comprises:
2 x Cisco 3236C 100-Gbps switches
2 x Tektronix TSG8000 with PTP
34 x Grass Valley IQUCP25/50 multichannel video-over-IP transceivers
2 x Grass Valley MV-820-IP multiviewers for high-density IP monitoring
2 x Grass Valley IPRA/C IP router controllers/adapters
1 x Grass Valley log server
8 x Cisco 3750G switches for control and monitoring
Gearhouse has been onsite for a full two weeks to support the installation and testing, and our engineers will remain on hand tomorrow night to oversee the distribution of live feeds to rights holders around the world.
The Champions League Final will be a second run-out for our new IP equipment, as we built a similar workflow for the other all-English game this week – the UEFA Europa League Final in Baku. Indeed, IP is setting the tone for many upcoming deployments, as our Projects team continue to see demand growing day by day for applications ranging from sport to current affairs to live entertainment.
On 27 April 2019, Rennes took on Paris St-Germain (PSG) in the Finale Coupe de France – the French Cup Final.
The mighty PSG were looking for a fourth domestic double in five years, and took control early on through goals from Dani Alves and Neymar. But then, against all the odds, mid-table Rennes came back to draw 2-2 after 90 minutes, and went on to triumph 6-5 in the penalty shootout.
The occasion marked Rennes’ first French Cup since 1971, and was PSG’s first cup final defeat since 2011.
Gearhouse Broadcast France provided RF systems for the pre-match and two Camera Corps Goal Cams for the match itself, which was held at the Stade de France in Paris. The Goal Cams are a particularly good piece of kit – they’re easy to rig and provide great shots from right inside the goal. And when you’re covering a match where the ball hits the back of the net 15 times, that’s exactly where you want to be.
HyperActive engineers were onsite at Wolverhampton Wanderers and Millwall FC for the FA Cup Quarter Final weekend of 17th and 18th March.
It was a weekend of high drama, with Brighton coming from two goals down before beating 10-man Millwall on penalties and reaching their first FA Cup semi-final since 1983. And at Molineux, Wolves produced an outstanding second-half display to beat Man United and reach their first FA Cup semi-final for over two decades.
After an extensive 4K workflow test with BBC Sport a few weeks ago, our engineers used these two matches to benchmark HyperActive’s 4K-capable Avid Media Composer systems in a live environment. Everything went well, so we should be on track to introduce a full UHD editing workflow solution to next season’s cup competition.
Gearhouse Broadcast announces the completion of an installation for sports federation UEFA at the organisation’s HQ in Nyon, Switzerland. Gearhouse Broadcast was commissioned to upgrade UEFA’s Match Center and Master Control Room in preparation for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League tournaments for the 2012/2013 season.
The new installation consisted of installing bespoke furniture, new cabling and technical equipment. The project involved an eight week planning period followed by four weeks of onsite installation, integration and commissioning.
In terms of personnel for the project, Gearhouse Broadcast provided a Senior Project Engineer, three Wiremen, two Riggers, a Custom Control Programmer and a System Programming Engineer.
The equipment selected to carry out the modernisation/upgrade included a Miranda NV8280 router, Miranda Multi-viewers, Miranda glue and fibre conversion, Miranda iControl, and Barco LED rear projection seamless screens. Imagine Communications glue was also installed along with a Tektronix waveform monitors and Bel Audio Monitors. The design and manufacture of the bespoke Command Centre furniture was constructed from Custom Consoles Module-R range of control room furniture.
“Following the original brief from UEFA, Gearhouse Broadcast provided consultancy and project management throughout the contract and carried out the systems integration on site. Technical support is available to UEFA post installation in the form of Gearhouse Broadcast’s after sales support service,” explained Gearhouse Broadcast Chief Operating Officer Kevin Moorhouse.
Andre Nel, Broadcast Engineering and Technical Manager for UEFA TV Production said, “The project needed very specific solutions to match UEFA requirements for match operations and these solutions were delivered in a short turnaround time and to a very high standard. We are extremely satisfied with the technical and operational solutions provided by Gearhouse Broadcast.”
Gearhouse Broadcast’s Doha office recently teamed up with market-leading broadcast graphics solutions provider Vizrt to provide Arabic and English language broadcast giants Al Jazeera with a graphic system and studio upgrade to do justice to their coverage of this summer’s football World Cup in South Africa.
The increasing demand for Gearhouse Doha’s broadcast systems integration and project solutions expertise across the Middle East led to the opening of our Qatar offices in Doha two years ago.
Satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera was the first 24/7 news channel to broadcast in both Arabic and English, and its comprehensive HD coverage of the World Cup in June was in huge demand across the Middle East and also in North Africa and Asia.
Since the Gearhouse Broadcast Doha office opened in 2008 it has been involved in a number of high profile projects in the Emirate.
It was responsible for designing and delivering a bespoke, complete and ready to use integrated broadcast system for the State Mosque of Qatar, believed to be the biggest in the Middle East and capable of holding 10,000 worshippers.
In Doha itself, Gearhouse Broadcast provided audio visual and cabling upgrades to the prestigious Khalifa Squash and Tennis Club and also installed a robotic camera system at the Aspire Tower in the city
Gearhouse Broadcast’s Doha broadcast systems integration team were brought in to work with Vizrt to expand Al Jazeera Sports’ studios to coincide with the most widely watched sporting event on earth.
Vizrt’s systems are used to Broadcast 3D on-screen logos and characters to weather maps and broadcast graphics tools for everything from sports statistic analysis to election coverage.
Specialists from Gearhouse Broadcast supplied the necessary expertise to upgrade and extend the 3D on-screen logo Vizrt system and permanently install new infrastructure links to a further three studios within Al Jazeera’s Doha complex.
Having configured the system according to a meticulous layout plan drawn up in collaboration with Virzt, our engineers routed and installed the direct cabling required to upgrade and extend the Vizrt system to the additional linked studios.
Rigorous testing was carried out before the new system was turned on and went live. The transfer and integration with the existing Vizrt system was seamlessly achieved within a critical two hour downtime slot.
“This is our first project with Al Jazeera, and we are very pleased to have worked with this most high profile broadcaster in the region,” said Gearhouse Broadcast.
“Vizrt are world leaders in the field of broadcast graphics and it is a tribute to our Doha team’s reputation for delivering broadcast systems integration solutions that they turned to us to manage this important systems upgrade.”.
It seems that no sooner was the World Cup over than the English Premier League was back on our screens and with it the national institution that is football.
The BBC’s football programmes are among the most famous programmes in sports broadcasting, and the fact that all games are now broadcast in full HD is thanks in part to the HD broadcast cameras and infrastructure supplied by the Rental Division of Gearhouse Broadcast.
The BBC’s outside broadcast contractors SISLive are charged with arranging comprehensive HD coverage of matches taking place across the country, and Gearhouse Broadcast are the natural partners for anyone looking for that kind of volume of HD camera rental and HD broadcast infrastructure rental.
Every match day Gearhouse Broadcast’s Rental Division supply the latest HD system cameras and channel technology to ensure that every kick of every game is covered from every possible angle.
Each weekend you’ll find Gearhouse Broadcast Sony HDC 1500R multi-format HD system cameras position around all the grounds to capture the action in full HD as well as HD camcorders to record pitch side interviews and reaction.
These will usually be accompanied by the amazing Sony HDC 3300 Super Slow Motion camera, which allows the programme editor to access slow motion highlights from the game in a matter of seconds.
The boom in demand for HD sports broadcast equipment rental has only been matched by demand for hard drive servers capable of storing and backing up the vastly increased stream of audio and video information generated by HD broadcast cameras.
The undisputed market leaders in this field are EVS, whose EVS XT server and recently launched successor EVS XT2+ are in constant demand among professional sports broadcasters, not surprisingly given their respective 6x300GB and 12x300GB HD standard memory capacities.
Thinking ahead about HD broadcast equipment rentals
Fortunately, Gearhouse Broadcast anticipated some time ago the impact that HD broadcasting would have on the broadcast equipment rental market, and has healthy rental stocks of not only HD cameras and camcorders but has also built up the largest stocks of EVS Hard Discs to be found among any UK broadcast rental company.
Indeed, it is currently in the process of gradually replacing all its 60 plus EVS XTs with the XT2+ version.
Gearhouse Broadcast has a strong track record in supplying broadcasting equipment for sports events, including football.
Many of the HD cameras and infrastructure equipment supplied to broadcasters at this summer’s World Cup in South Africa is now back in the UK and available for sale and rental, and the company also hire HD system cameras, camcorders and EVS hard disc systems to contractors providing coverage for many high profile channels.
Jakki Hewitt, Rental Manager at Gearhouse Broadcast, says: “With the combination of technical expertise and levels of equipment we hold, unlike most broadcast equipment rental companies we can act as a One-Stop Shop for the customer.
“From the cameras, EVS servers to the glue infrastructure, we can supply a fully comprehensive package and can back it up with the expert knowledge of our Project Solutions and System Integration Divisions.”
