Gravity Media, a world leading global provider of complex live creative production and media services, once again delivered its expertise to the global television coverage of the 2025 Macau Grand Prix, deploying cutting-edge camera technology designed and engineered in Australia.
Gravity Media and its Globecam team delivered more than 30 specialty on-board and in-car cameras across Formula 3, World GT Cars and Guia Race Cars and also motorbikes that competed in the Moto Series through the streets of Macau across 13 – 16 November.
To achieve the best perspectives, Gravity Media’s engineers custom-built a range of lightweight and aerodynamic camera housings, including specialised rear spoiler and wing mounts, allowing for discreet installation and dynamic new viewpoints from within the vehicles.
Gravity Media’s specialist teams have been a trusted part of the Macau Grand Prix broadcast since 2008, providing world-class imagery from one of the most challenging street circuits in motorsport.
Celebrating its 72nd edition this year, the Macau Grand Prix is one of the world’s most prestigious international racing events, renowned for its high-speed straights, tight corners and iconic city backdrop.
Greg Littrich, General Manager, SNG, RF and Specialist Cameras at Gravity Media, said:
“It’s a privilege to continue our long-standing partnership with the Macau Grand Prix. Our Australian-designed specialist camera systems once again helped showcase the excitement and skill of this world-class event to audiences around the globe.”
Andrew Vong, Secretary General of Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee, commented:
“During the period of cooperation, Gravity Media confirmed their high professionalism in their uniqueness of specialist services, while meeting the circuit safety regulation of the Macau Grand Prix.”
PRESS RELEASE
Daniil Medvedev continued his rich vein of form at the 2019 Shanghai Masters, defeating world number 5 Alexander Zverev 6-4 6-1 in the final.
Medvedev’s win marked something of a changing of the guard in Shanghai. Since Nikolay Davydenko won the tournament in 2009, only three players have lifted the trophy in the past decade. Defending champion Novak Djokovic has won the title four times, Roger Federer was hoping to win his third Shanghai title, and Andy Murray, a three-time past champion, was just happy to be playing as he continues on his comeback trail.
Gearhouse Broadcast was on hand to support transmission in China, providing robotic cameras and a hi-motion Sony HDC4300. We also set up the edit facilities, gallery and audio control room for ATP Media’s World Feed, supplying a Sony vision mixer, LAWO audio console and EVS XT3 servers.
Gearhouse Broadcast France was on location with Host Production Facilities and Crew at the F1H2O Grand Prix of China last weekend, in Xiamen on the south-east coast of China.
Seventeen boats took to the 2.5km course, which saw Team Abu Dhabi’s Shaun Torrente survive an incident-strewn race, to take a start-to finish victory and regain the lead in the championship. It was a tough outing for all competitors, with strong winds churning up the waters of Wuyan Bay and just nine of the 17 starters making it to the chequered flag.
The Gearhouse team delivered a bespoke 10-camera package, with four additional onboard facilities capturing driver POV footage and engine sound. The sun was out for the occasion, but the high winds meant plenty of crashes, making it all the more enjoyable TV entertainment.
The next stop on the calendar is the UAE on the 20/21st of December.
The Gearhouse team survived the elements in Japan this weekend to help Whisper cover Super Sunday at Suzuka for Channel 4.
Typhoon Hagibis made it an unorthodox Formula One weekend, with high winds forcing qualifying to take place just a few hours before the race itself. A Ferrari front-row lock-out lasted all of five seconds, with Vettel botching the start and Bottas flying past him into the lead.
Bottas held on comfortably to take his first race win since April, and Hamilton came in third to secure Mercedes’ sixth constructors’ title in a row. Only Bottas can now beat Hamilton to the 2019 World Championship: mathematically possible but totally improbable. Hamilton leads Bottas by 64 points, and needs to be 78 clear of the Finn to win his sixth drivers’ title at the next race in Mexico.
All said and done, it was a worthwhile race in Singapore, despite there being little or no on-track action at the top of the field. Most of the drama happened in the pit lane, with Ferrari bizarrely helping Vettel undercut his teammate Leclerc, who until then seemed to be happily cruising to victory. This controversial decision helped Vettel to his first F1 win in almost 400 days, and left Leclerc more than a little bit miffed. Meanwhile, Hamilton reverted to sulky type, disappointed the Mercedes team hadn’t allowed him to try the undercut too.
Other highlights – or lowlights, depending on your perspective – were the three Safety Cars, thanks to middle-order shenanigans involving Russel and (no surprises) Grosjean; Kvyat and Raikonnen; and a Perez retirement. The mid-field cars provided most of the spectacle, with Danny Ricciardo showing his usual heroics to fight through the field from the back of the grid, only to collide with Giovinazzi on lap 34 and fall back down it.
Gearhouse Broadcast made the trip to Singapore’s floodlit Marina Bay Street Circuit to support Whisper with their TV package for Channel 4. Our next rendezvous will be at Russia’s Sochi Autodrom in a few days’ time. Khoroshiy.
The Karate Premier League was introduced by the World Karate Federation to increase the sport’s profile and provide an Olympic qualification system. Established in 2011 with just two events held in Paris and Istanbul – the League now travels to Paris, Dubai, Rabat, Tokyo, Moscow, Shanghai, Salzburg and Madrid, on an annual base.
After supporting International Sports Broadcasting (ISB), who is the Host Broadcaster with events in Dubai and Paris during the 2019 season, Gearhouse Broadcast accompanied ISB to Tokyo during September, to cover the League’s Japanese stopover. ISB who oversee the production and distribution of each event across multiple platforms, turned to Gearhouse Broadcast to help make this sport more accessible to a fast-growing fanbase around the world. The World Karate Federation currently has 400,000 subscribers on YouTube.
The eagerly anticipated Rugby World Cup starts on 20 September, culminating on Saturday 2 November at the 70,000-seat Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan is the ninth edition of the showcase event and the first to be hosted in Asia, where 20 participating teams will compete in a total of 48 matches at 12 venues across the country.
With just a couple of weeks to go until the tournament begins, the organisers are confident the event will set new standards in rugby broadcast production, providing a record global footprint, and attracting new fans and showcasing the sport in higher quality than ever before. Japan 2019 will reach the broadest rugby audience in history, with the action broadcast to more than 800 million households in 217 territories.
HyperActive’s part in that has been to prepare 13 EVS ChannelMAX XT3s and four EVS XHub3s for NEP UK, which have been shipped to Japan ready to capture all the action.
~ Flypacks deployed at three venues including UHD solution for final in Beijing ~
Watford, UK, 11 September 2019 – Gearhouse Broadcast, the Gravity Media-owned supplier of technical facilities, crew and services used to capture the world’s most watched content, is providing a range of facilities to FIBA, through is entity FIBA Media, for its host broadcast of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019. These include the deployment of Gearhouse’s Flypack portable production systems at three of the eight official venues, with a UHD solution being used in Beijing where the Final will be held. The 32-team tournament takes place across China between 31 August – 15 September.
In what FIBA Media describes as its biggest and most ambitious TV, digital and social media coverage global production plan ever, this World Cup marks a momentous change in the production, coverage, presentation and multi-platform availability of the event. It’s featuring a host of innovations, including augmented reality, referee-audio, and a broadcast SuperFeed.
Gearhouse Broadcast is also providing host commentary services for FIBA Media at six of the eight venues. This enables rights owners to deliver bespoke broadcasts to their audiences – either on site at the arena or remotely using real-time audio-over-IP networking technology.
Ed Tischler, Managing Director at Gearhouse Broadcast (UK) said: “With viewer expectations so high these days, the pressure is on to make productions stand out by delivering a large amount of quality coverage across a multitude of formats. Rights owners like FIBA that are looking to further enhance the quality of their coverage are turning to Gearhouse Broadcast because of its reputation for innovation and its track record of working with host broadcasters at the biggest events.”
Gravity Media will be showcasing the latest complex live broadcast facilities and production services it offers across its four core brands – Gearhouse Broadcast, Hyperactive Broadcast, Input Media and Chief Entertainment – on stand 10.B39 at IBC2019 in Amsterdam.
Hitachi HD cameras equipped with Gearhouse Actis RF systems provide wireless venue coverage.
Gearhouse Broadcast a worldwide broadcast services specialist, has delivered HD production facilities for the 2014 Asian Games (XVII Asiad), which recently took place in Incheon, South Korea.
Working with Mito, for Incheon Host Broadcasting Management, Gearhouse provided complete coverage with 65 cameras across five venues hosting a number of sports including athletics, cricket and badminton. It also supplied 31 super slow-mo camera channels and 50 specialist and radio cameras, and sent out a 60-strong team of experts to provide on-site technical support.
This is the first major event that Gearhouse has been able to call on the services of its new in-house specialist RF business, Gearhouse Actis, following its acquisition of the respected French company Actis HF, in July 2014 and subsequent rebranding. Through Gearhouse’s unique partnership with Hitachi, the Gearhouse Actis team were able to develop a solution prior to the Games so that the Hitachi SK-HD1200 production camera could be used wirelessly.
“Having Gearhouse Actis on board is a huge help to us both during the build-up to the Asian Games, and while on-site in Incheon,” said Edward Tischler, head of projects at Gearhouse Broadcast. “It proved a valuable resource for my projects team, and our customers at major events in the future. With their expertise on hand, we can now be much more flexible in meeting the usual RF challenges we face at events like this like the inevitable frequency changes.”
With a large amount of equipment returning from this summer’s World Cup in Brazil, Gearhouse shipped a total of 68 tons of kit to South Korea. This included 65 Hitachi cameras, 25 newly upgraded EVS systems, eight Sony MVS vision mixers, as well as multiple Snell routers and Lawo V_pro8 video processors.
Sang Ho Park, president of Mito Corpotation said, “Gearhouse has a proven track record of performing at the biggest events, and has been able to deliver various solutions to meet our broadcast needs, so it was a logical choice for us to work with them. Thanks to its relationship with Hitachi, as well as its new in-house RF offering, Gearhouse Actis, we were able to reduce the number of vendors we had to deal with, which has simplified things from our perspective.”
The Asian Games is a multi-sport event held every four years, hosting 13,000 athletes and officials from 45 Asian nations and around 7,000 media professionals. The XVII Asiad ran from 19 September to 4 October.
