Hitomi Broadcast has announced that TVN LIVE PRODUCTION, one of Europe’s leading mobile production companies, has purchased three MatchBox Generator and Analyser systems .
The purchase comes complete with MatchBox Glass licenses for upgraded capability across its studios complexes in Hamburg and Hanover as well as in its OB trucks. The deployment gives TVN the ability to benefit from absolute synchronicity between video and audio and deliver parallel output formats such as HD, 1080p and UHD.
The Hitomi solutions replace legacy systems that no longer offer support for newer formats, such as 1080p and UHD, and were supplied and installed by German systems integrator VIDI GmbH.
The production company plans to upgrade all its studios and OB trucks to Hitomi MatchBox as it transitions more of its capabilities from 1080i to 1080p/UHD. Christoph Moll, Technical manager at TVN LIVE PRODUCTION, said: “The Glass app gives us a huge advantage and means that we can once again extend the reliability of synchronous video / audio transmission, even when we process signals from external service providers.
“Everyone on the team has an iPhone at hand and can access the app and test audio and video links from in front of the camera quickly and easily. In the OB van, we can read the runtime with the Hitomi system and seamlessly make adjustments accordingly.” All TVN OB vans producing 1080p/UHD are now equipped with MatchBox, including TVN-Ü3, TVN-Ü5 and TVN-Ü6.
The company’s flightcase-based production unit, TVN-MPU3, houses both the legacy system for 1080i projects along with MatchBox to support 1080p. The TVN-Ü1 and TVN-Ü2 units are now being integrated into the fleet with upgraded capabilities. MatchBox is a state-of-the-art toolkit that streamlines live broadcast synchronisation and is relied on by broadcasters worldwide to ensure the timing of live sports, news and events.
It offers an intuitive identing feature, rapid measurement of lip sync, audio coherence, audio levels, phase inversions and video timing.
The MatchBox Analyser tool sits in the OB truck or MCR and looks and listens for the specific Hitomi video and audio signatures produced by the hardware MatchBox Generator (which produces 4K test patterns) and/or the MatchBox Glass app. A new essential for high-profile remote productions, the MatchBox Glass app allows precision measurement of lip-sync and video to video timing alignment at the point of capture.
The user holds an iPhone or iPad running the free iOS app in front of up to four cameras and feeds the signal back into the Analyser. Hitomi Broadcast Director Russell Johnson said: “Hitomi solutions are designed to take the guesswork out of the equation; our fast and accurate, electronic testing system replaces human estimates which are not only subjective, but fallible.
By allowing production staff to simply hold an iPhone or iPad running the MatchBox Glass app in front of a camera for synchronisation means considerable time savings in fast turnaround live production environments.”