Spectrum Productions Supports NASCAR

Awards Banquet with Broadcast Pix Granite 5000

Broadcast Pix™ announced that Spectrum Productions, a company which offers full AV production and rental services, used its new Granite™ 5000 2 M/E Video Control Center™ to produce the NASCAR 2012 Nationwide / Camping World Truck Series Awards Banquet at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in Miami Beach, Fla. The ceremony aired on SPEED in late November, and Spectrum was responsible for the the entire ballroom production including staging, scenic, video, and lighting at the venue.

Headquartered in Atlanta, with offices in Miami, Orlando, Charlotte, N.C., and Las Vegas, Nev., Spectrum has been providing AV production services for corporate meetings, conventions, and trade shows, as well as video support for concert tours, for more than 20 years. Preston MacIntyre, president, said the Granite system was purchased in October to help clients create a high-end broadcast look for their stage productions. “We were looking for a way to enhance production values for certain events, elevate their presentations from the PowerPoint look,” he explained.

Several features made Granite an ideal solution for Spectrum. “One thing that seems to be a problem in new switchers is a lot of frame delay,” MacIntyre said. “Delay is a big problem for live events. The Granite has very minimal latency, and that was a factor in selecting it.”

The Granite 5000’s optional 12 SDI outputs were another important feature. MacIntyre noted that corporate events have complex output routing needs. In fact, the number of outputs often exceeds the number of inputs during a corporate event, he said.

During the NASCAR banquet, Spectrum took full advantage of Granite’s built-in workflow tools. The Fluent™ Clip Store, for example, was used to access and playback more than 100 clips – but the production was far from simple. Throughout the show, videos were sent to various screens and combined with other sources and effects. Some cues included dozens of different commands. While the program would have been “really difficult” to execute manually, MacIntyre said Fluent Macros triggered each cue correctly and without a predetermined timeline, which can be problematic during a live show.

“Every single cue was a whole package of cues,” MacIntyre added. “Every step in our run of show was represented by a macro. We used Fluent Macros very, very extensively.”

Granite also helped make setup much easier and cleaner. Compared to setup for the same event last year, the Granite system replaced two switchers, eight computers, four HDCAM tape decks, and four additional playback systems. MacIntyre said all source content originated from the Granite, and the native HD system produced an outstanding look. The Fluent-View with Quad Monitor option was an asset during the NASCAR event as well, providing customized multi-view layouts for the TD and other production personnel during the event.

Moving forward, MacIntyre said Spectrum’s Granite system will be used for events where clients want to take their on-screen look to the next level, as well as events that require significant video playback or need to take advantage of the system’s built-in robotic camera control and other automation. “From the client side back through the technical ranks, everyone seems really happy with it,” he said.

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