1st November. Di.Bi. Technology is an Italian company well known in Italy for audio professional and lighting services, just to make an example it was involved in perhaps the most famous song contest here, San Remo.
With a previous background in electric power generators and audio service reputation the company with headquarters in the outskirts of Bologna opened up a new video division, around one year ago.
The main boast of such new division is the technical fleet composed of three powerful OB-Vans.
One is a huge truck with double expansion, an 18 camera OB-Van, mainly used for several national broadcasters and for Italian Serie A football.
Di.Bi. Technology video dept has also some new weapons to count on and that is two new 4 camera OB-Vans.
These two vehicles are particularly interesting to the tv industry because they represent a new and very agile profile in the on site sports shooting media.
Actually the are completely independent, and implement on board also a complete satellite link.
The project started in December 2011 with the brief of putting up small and agile vans to cover all sports events requests at very reasonable costs, since the broadcasters nowadays request the usual video quality but paying for such services at a fraction of the costs of the past.
Fully operative from this season, these OB-Vans boast each a complete mobile video control room based on a Ross Carbonite video mixer, four long lens (70x) Grass Valley 4000 cameras, and a BLT slow motion, highlights six channel new generation SMS machine which records all camera feeds continuously. Technical equipments are completed by a recording section based on XDCAM HD by Sony and complete uplink facilities with AVL satellite antenna and TPI amplifier, plus Ericsson MPEG2 and MPEG4 encoders, Yamaha DM1000 audio mixer, and Riedel intercom.
Some dynamic microphones are placed on field during every match, on the back of each goal and along 16 meters line to get the right environment.
“These two brand new OB-Vans are very light and agile and thoroughly independent” Umberto Majorca Di.Bi. Technology video dept technical manager tells us, ”both are equipped with 15 kW electric generator power supply, so can work autonomously. Minimum dimensions so to enter historical places on request, UPS on board, were developed to react the economic crisis which touched the sports service market too, where quality is to remain the same, very high, but budgets involved are more and more constraint.”
Wokkflow
These new conception 4 camera OB-Vans by Di.Bi. Technology implement on board five working sections, that is one single professional which is involved in two operations, video mixing and directing (called “realizzatore”), one journalist as a commentator, in the case of Serie B, from SKY Italia, an audio mixer, a camera control and an RVM operator who is involved in highlights and recordings.
In football Serie B matches graphics are created by the broadcaster main operating control room.
Despite such OB-vans are four cameras equipped, in Serie B Saturday matches only 3 cameras are employed (as officially requested by Lega Calcio): 1 and 2 are respectively shooting wide angle long shots and details and close ups; both are placed in the main grandstand, while the third is centrally placed on its stand along the central line of the field. They are all manually operated on site and hardly ever a shoulder or a steady-camera is used; it happens only when the main entrance of the teams is not covered by the central camera view. All cuts and directing are made on field, slow motions and highlight inserted and the clean feed is then sent via satellite up to the main control room by Infront Group, the organization involved in distributing signals to broadcasters sports rights holders, usually Mediaset, SKY and in the Serie B case, Europa7 network. Each broadcaster usually completes the feed with proper graphics.
International signal is delivered starting from 14,30 and if requested another proper link is created from locker rooms.
