Case Study: Giant Screen Video at Paris' Parc des Princes
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To set up the Parc des Princes stadium's giant screens production management system and create a web TV, CAP TV relies on the products and software offered by Visualdis, NewTek's official distributor in France. The challenge is to set up a powerful yet affordable production system, one that is simple enough to be used by one person or a small team while ensuring high-quality sport broadcast transmission and dynamic in-venue display management.
The Parc des Princes stadium was the first in France to be equipped with giant screens. And that, in fact, is partly due to the movie Didier produced in 1997 by French director Alain Chabat. In the movie, actor Dominique Farrugia plays a staunch supporter of the PSG (Paris Saint-Germain) soccer team. During a game at Parc des Princes, the character stands in the crowd following the game on a small portable TV and wonders why the stadium has no giant screens. Following the movie, producer and director Patrick Guitton, CEO of CAP TV, was contacted to meet the challenge for real. And he succeeded-the Parc des Princes was equipped with giant screens about 5 years before the other stadiums.
For this project, Guitton relied on the products and services offered by Visualdis, a company that has a rare dual expertise in broadcasting and webcasting (new technologies and IP streaming) technologies. The products offered by Visualdis combine power and cost optimisation, enabling cost reduction of up to 10 times compared to traditional technologies. The association between Visualdis and CAP TV was the perfect match, with CAP TV knowing production challenges very well and Visualdis providing bespoke solutions. This combination makes it possible to identify customer needs and create an optimal solution in very short time frames.
NewTek TriCaster was the solution that best suited CAP TV's needs to equip the production of Parc des Princes with high-quality venue video, in a way that is "compact, both in terms of equipment and staff," said Guitton. NewTek TriCaster is an integrated system that optimises user costs by reducing the number of people working on an operation. It is a very simple product to use thanks to its intuitive interface. Getting started is thus fast and requires very little training.
The production of a game requires a lot of resources: signal capture, production, postproduction, computer graphics, webcasting, and powering the giant screens. The Parc des Princes has sought to exploit its giant screens at every opportunity. In fact, giant screens are used before, during, and after the game. During pregame, the audience views the presentation of the players and advertisements. During the game, the production team provides slow-motion replays, displays scores, and so on. During the break, the display screens are used for entertainment with the transmission of other games. Finally, a summary of the competition is transmitted at the end of the game. With TriCaster, all this can be performed live.
The system set up and operated by CAP TV at Parc des Princes is the ideal solution to respond to such a challenge. This is the most cost-effective solution in terms of production and technical management on the market. With the right tools, giant screens are a great added value for a stadium. Indeed, the goal is not to broadcast a continuous uptake but to entertain the public. This system allows for live slow-motion replays to review a live action or a goal. All extracts and summaries of the games are created during capture. Similarly, importing, coding, and dissemination of an advertisement are done simply and quickly. TriCaster therefore contributes to the dynamic of live venue display with all the necessary contents.
In addition to powering and leading the stadium's giant screens, TriCaster is used as a production means for web TV. It provides Windows Media and/or Flash streaming signals to power the streaming servers. TriCaster can send these streams simultaneously while broadcasting on the screens. With TriCaster, any organisation can, with very reasonable financial costs, create its own TV channel or web TV.