OB firm NEP will launch five new outside broadcast trucks this year to cover live events including Wimbledon and the Premier League, seven months after a fire devastated its Bracknell base.
OB firm NEP will launch five new outside broadcast trucks this year to cover live events including Wimbledon and the Premier League, seven months after a fire devastated its Bracknell base.
The firm lost equipment and OB trucks worth tens of millions of pounds last November when its UK headquarters was gutted.
It is now “starting to lift its head”, according to NEP UK and Ireland president Steve Jenkins.
This year, the company has worked on events such as the world feed for the French Open and the Premier League, but Wimbledon is particularly significant as it is the first major event for the company’s Pacific vehicle, which will be used to provide coverage of the action from centre court.
The truck, which some had suggested should have been called Phoenix in reference to the fire, is 4K-capable.
It will be joined by three other large trucks that will be operational between August and October, with a complement of seven 4K-capable flypacks. A fifth vehicle is already on its way to cover the Tour de France. These trucks will work across the Premier League, rugby and events such as National Theatre performances and Glyndebourne.
4K investment
For its trucks and flypacks, NEP UK has invested in 4K-capable kit, including 66 Sony HDC-4300 cameras, tens of EVS XT3 servers, Calrec Artemis and Summa audio consoles, Sam Kahuna vision mixers and IP3 routers from Imagine Communications.
“It makes sense for us to invest in 4K because we can see the demand increasing,” Jenkins said.
“Although we have already done some work for the National Theatre in 4K, it is more about building with the future in mind. Some parts of the world are still watching standard definition 4 x 3 content, so if you are serving the world, you must be logical – it is about making sure you are equipped to deal with demand for all of your clients, wherever they may be.”
The rebuild of NEP’s trucks has created an opportunity to embrace IP networking technologies on a greater scale than before, and cut down on the amount of cabling required to link the truck with other parts of the OB village at Wimbledon. This, in turn, has helped to reduce rigging times.
The company is also conducting its own tests for remote production, including connectivity and equipment control.
“The core of what we do is to produce sustainable and robust coverage, but it is also to provide innovative workflows,” Jenkins said. “When you take into consideration how expensive some of the rights and properties are, then I feel we as an industry evolve technology at a reasonable rate. We just have to make sure that we don’t ever risk the coverage of programmes.”
Johnson said the company did not miss a single delivery as a result of the fire, adding that it cross-hired from other OB firms and moved resources from other companies in the NEP group, which is headquartered in the US, with divisions in Europe and Asia.
Future growth
NEP UK is to move into cloud-based post-production and remote production for the first time. The group already offers these services outside of the UK, with NEP Netherlands using cloud technology on RTL shows Carlo’s TV Café and Voetbal Inside at the end of last year.
“Because of the changing demands of clients, we have to be more than just an outside broadcast company; we need to offer a greater range of services to our clients,” said Jenkins.
“We are building up our core OB services, but I would also expect the scope of our work to grow, with services such as cloud-based post-production, media management, playout, OTT and remote production.”
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