NEP Visions has made its biggest investment in flypack kit to date - spending around £4m on equipment to cover next week’s Wimbledon tennis tournament.

It is the first time NEP Visions will provide host outside broadcast (OB) services at Wimbledon, having taken over from SIS Live.

Last year, NEP Visions provided OB services for ESPN’s US Wimbledon coverage and, in conjunction with the BBC and Sony, an OB truck to support 3D production.

NEP Visions commercial and technical projects director Brian Clark said Wimbledon now ranked as the company’s main event in the UK.

“The only thing close would be something of the level of coverage for the Olympics, or the upcoming Commonwealth Games,” he said.

The company will provide more than 100 camera channels for the BBC and around 25 for ESPN.

Wimbledon will also provide the setting for one of the first UK uses of Grass Valley’s new LDX 6X highframe- rate camera, which was unveiled at NAB earlier this year.

NEP Visions will also use Grass Valley’s recently released LDX 4K camera to conduct closed 4K tests during the tournament, with the manufacturer’s LDK 8000 Elite and Sony’s HDC-1500 and HDC-2500 cameras making up the remainder of the camera channels.

“Our main aim is to provide a seamless transfer from the previous OB supplier,” said Clark. “But we want to provide production teams with more options and have a more tightly integrated production and technical operation.”

The company’s flypack investment includes Imagine Communications (formerly Harris Broadcast) routers, Grass Valley vision mixing desks, Calrec and Digico sound desks and a Telex communications system.

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