Media Servers

Royal Albert Hall – Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts 2019

27/03/2019 by petermccrea

The annual Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) fundraising week of concerts and comedy gigs descended on London’s Royal Albert Hall in March 2019 to help support young people with cancer. TCT engaged video solutions specialist Production AV to supply a full video package consisting of LED screens, cameras and mixing, media servers and technicians for the event, which saw crowd-pleasers including Take That, Rudimental and The Script perform over the week. Each performance was mixed with real-life stories of young people affected by cancer and appeals for donations.

Full Concert Video Production Solution for Teenage Cancer Trust

“There are two key video elements that we were required to deliver: one was to display live on-stage action onto IMAG screens, the other to promote how people can donate money to TCT,” said Pete McCrea, Production AV’s managing director. “To achieve this, we supplied Desay M6 LED panels as a central 8m x 4.5 screen flown above the stage and a large, curved 27.9m x 0.9m banner of LED screens across the back of the main stage, displaying information. This was supported with a camera package for the relay of real-life stories and live performances to the screens.”

Production AV supplied Sony HDC 1500R Studio Channels and Agile ARC360 Lite PTZ Remote Cameras, with footage mixed and directed using the company’s Blackmagic ATEM 4k PPU. McCrea and his team also used their Barco S3-4K for switching and disguise 2x4Pro Media Servers for content playback.

McCrea served as Project Manager, taking the helm with pre-production at Production AV’s new HQ near Cheltenham, load-in at the Royal Albert Hall and on-site set-up.

“Pre-production took the form of creating an artist liaison pack, to ensure we had all the screen pixel maps created and resolutions sorted, and the system design clearly communicated,” McCrea said. “Our team was in contact with the artists’ managers prior to the event to obtain assets, pre-program content and test everything well before we were on-site.

“We utilised disguise’s fantastic ‘designer’ software for building and pre-programming all of the content. In the days before the event, we pre-built the control systems and banner screen, patched and programmed the servers to ensure that the get-in went without a hitch. Then it was consigned to the job by our friends at R Jameson Event Transport.”

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University of South Wales – Video Technology Demonstration Day

18/04/2018 by petermccrea

Production AV is always on the lookout to support up and coming individuals in the event production industry. So we were excited to be collaborating with the University of South Wales Live Event and Lighting Course, Stage Sound Services, Ashley Raines from Barco and Peter Kirkup from disguise to provide their students with a hands on experience using some of our industry leading video production equipment as well as offer advice and insight into the exciting but enigmatic industry we find ourselves in!

USW Video Technology Demonstration Day

Our aim was to provide two workshops for the students to experience and test the capabilities of our equipment. Our first workshop revolved around our DigiLED 3.9mm Indoor LED Screen as well as a Barco UDX-4K32 4K Laser Projector generously provided by Barco. 4K video was fed from our disguise 2x4pro Media Server into our Barco S3-4K Screen Management System and Barco EC-50 Event Controller so students could experience how these tools could be used with projection and LED technologies in event production scenarios. Features like PIP’s (Pictures in Pictures), luma keys and widescreen blend capabilities were demonstrated to show how easy it was to create slick and impressive video solutions whilst having the processing power to manage up to twelve different video inputs.

Having recently invested in disguise 2x4pro Media Servers, we wanted our second workshop to demonstrate the capabilities of these media servers. As our 2x4pro’s were driving a large scale project at the Geneva Motor Show Convention, disguise stepped in and provided a GX1 Media Server. With the assistance of Peter from disguise, four sessions were run throughout the day where students setup a projection mapping solution onto a model car displaying the power and vast creative opportunities that the disguise systems offer.

It was a pleasure putting on this demonstration day for USW students and we’d like to thank the University for hosting us as well as Stage Sound Services, Barco and disguise for attending and helping us create this informative and engaging demonstration of our video technologies. We’re looking forward to seeing some of the students out on site in the near future!

Today we are with @usw__lighting_design @usw_event_production showing off #barcos34k #barcoudx4k32 @disguise_one servers together with friends from #stagesoundservices

A post shared by Production AV Ltd (@productionav) on Mar 12, 2018 at 9:05am PDT

Major Investment in disguise 2x4pro Media Servers

26/07/2017 by petermccrea

Production AV are proud and excited to announce joining the disguise family through our £200,000 investment into diguise 2x4pro Media Servers. The 2x4pro’s provide two 4k outputs, or with the Video Format Convertor Cards, up to 8 HD outputs hitting the technical requirements for the everyday show or project but also having the capabilities for pushing pixels on larger events. Output flexibility can be critical and the 2x4pro comes natively with two DisplayPort outputs however Production AV can supply for them to be swapped out for either Quad SDI or Dual DVI VFC cards.

Another key feature of the disguise platform is the ability to work from the initial concept through to delivery onsite within the disguise environment allowing for pre visualisation at the sales, design and implantation phases. This can help take the pain of misunderstanding away from projects.

We are delighted to announce that our stock of disguise 2x4pro’s didn’t even reach the warehouse after the purchase as they immediately went on tour with one of our long term clients.

Please do contact us through call or email us if you would like a quotation for a particular project, or a demo of the capabilities of the server.

Bristol Harbourside – Grillstock 2017 BBQ and Music Festival

24/07/2017 by petermccrea

Having been lucky enough to be requested by Utopium Lighting to provide the LED screen solution for Grillstock 2016, we were looking forward to being further involved in the production of Grillstock. For 2017 we expanded our services to the festival, providing the screen, camera system and livestream capabilities feed. Grillstock is one of the events we most look forward to on the work calendar with the promise of good weather, fantastic food and a variety of artists ranging from The Darkness to the Hot 8 Brass Band and even a trip down memory lane with Goldie Lookin Chain performing!

Complete Video Solution for Grillstock 2017

The load in was completed on the Friday before the weekend event with the video centrepiece being a 6.4m x 3.6m LED screen built using our Desay 6.25mm Indoor/Outdoor LED Panels that was flown from four rigging points at the rear of the stage to provide a backdrop. Some artists brought their own content which was scaled and fed to the screen using our Barco ImagePRO II Dual and played out using our Hippotizer AMBA V4 Media Servers. For much of the event however, the screen displayed live camera feed from our system of Sony HXC-100 Camera Channels with one camera channel at FOH and the other being used on a dolly at the front of stage as well as being handheld to diversify the types of shots achieved. In addition to this, onstage remotely controlled Sony PMW-EX3 HD Video Cameras were provided and it gave us the freedom to utilise numerous angles without being an intrusion to the acts on stage.

Our control centre was built to the side of stage left and from there, our PPU built around the Panasonic AV-HS400 Vision Mixer was used to mix the show as well as engineer camera settings such as colouration levels so that the camera operators could focus fully on getting the best shots. Production AV were also instructed to record the event and using our Blackmagic Designs HyperDeck Studio Pro and a synced audio feed, each act was separately recorded, archived and provided to Grillstock on an SSD card following the completion of the event. In addition to this, Grillstock were livestreaming several of the acts to Facebook and a video and audio feed was provided by Production AV to achieve this. Elsewhere on site, Production AV also provided screens and a camera solution to the Weber Stand using two Panasonic 42″ TH-42LF8 Full HD LCD Panels that were mounted to the set and displayed the mouth watering creations our Sony PMW-EX3 HD Video Camera captured throughout the weekend on the Weber BBQ range.

With The Darkness ending the festival with ‘I Believe In a Thing Called Love’ much to the crowds appreciation, Production AV began the packdown and in an hour and half all our kit was in the back of the truck. It is always a pleasure working with Utopium and we’d like to thank them for selecting us to provide the video solution to both Grillstock 2017 but also to the Summer Series held the week before. We are looking forward to continuing this relationship with Utopium and providing more video solutions for Grillstock and other events throughout the year.

A post shared by Sam (@sam_mcconnochie) on Jul 1, 2017 at 2:30pm PDT