|
In the Press
Telecast Enables Advanced HD Workflows at Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden
WORCESTER, Mass. — June 5, 2007 — Telecast Fiber Systems today announced that its fiber optic systems are being used at Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden to support the country’s first in-arena, fully functional high definition (HD) scoreboard — the Garden HDX — and the arena’s HD control room. An additional fiber package from Telecast also has enabled the New England Sports Network (NESN) to improve the quality of video and depth of information it provides to fans during telecasts of Boston Bruins games from the TD Banknorth Garden.
 |
“This multi-million dollar project to install a first-of-its-kind, in-arena HD scoreboard would have been impossible to complete without singlemode and SMPTE fiber technology,” said John Mitchell, director of audio/video for the TD Banknorth Garden. “Telecast worked closely with us to implement a high-quality fiber linking solution that enables easy transport of HD signals throughout our facility and provides room for additional growth in the future.”
Telecast supplied TD Banknorth Garden a fiber package to support the transport of 10 HD 1080i (HD-SDI) camera signals, sent from the production truck bay to a broadcast hub location on the arena level. The 10 HD-SDI signals are then fed into HD DAs that supply video to the Bruins’ and Celtics’ locker rooms and through a Telecast Viper™ II modular fiber optic system for transmission via singlemode fiber to the new HD control room.
The arena’s in-house robotic Ikegami HD scoreboard camera uses Telecast Viper II POV transceivers to deliver HD video and control signals via singlemode fiber to the control room. The same Viper II systems are used to send HD-SDI feeds from the in-house scoreboard program, as well as the robotic HD scoreboard camera feed, to the truck bay.
For broadcasts from its own HD booth at the Garden, NESN uses Telecast Viper II systems to put three uncompressed HD feeds, a combination of analog and Ethernet feeds, as well as return monitoring feeds, on redundant leased fibers. Thus, NESN post-game shows and other programming from the arena can be controlled from the network’s Watertown, Mass. facility, nearly 20 fiber miles away, with sources coming directly into the NESN control room. The Ethernet link muxed into the booth package gives on-air talent fast, easy online access to the latest stats from around the NHL.
Because the HD signal remains uncompressed from capture through production and is compressed only at the satellite uplink, NESN is able to maintain clean, pristine images for its Bruins hockey coverage. The Viper systems’ four-channel and eight-channel optical multiplexing (CWDM) capacity enables the network to use far fewer cross-town fibers for its transmissions, making room for additional channels or signals in the future.
Top of Page |
|
102 Grove Street