A company totally dedicated to television production with its own vehicles, studios and a lot more.
Euroscena is a real tv service that operates broadcast equipments, cameras and personnel, which produce live television shows, with headquarters in Rome and branch offices near Milan in Sesto San Giovanni. On the market for many years, the company specialization since 2006 is very centered on sports and the majority of work is carried out for football, even if in the past several other more general shows were central.
"Our customers are the majority of Italian brodcasters, SKY, Madiaset , La7, RAI, and we have followed the Serie A soccer with two tournaments a week, the motorcycle CIV, boxing matches, and a lot more", says Riccardo Petrucci technical director of Euroscena.
Ths year too Euroscena is a protagonist for INFRONT, Sky and Mediaset in Italian Serie A soccer chamipnship.
For the first day the Unit 20HD was in Parma for PARMA – CHIEVO and Unit 22HD at the Olimpico Stadium in Rome for Lazio – Udinese.
To this summs up the extra engagements for Europa League Championship, Champions and general entertainment for national and international networks.
On Sundays we often employ some 13 cameras in one match and many other for other matches, so that a total number of around 20/22 are on set
Actually the director's shooting plan provided among the various cameras, camera one and camera two, placed at mid field on the main seated area at the top, one shooting close ups and the other teking wide angle shots, two cameras placed at the 6 m line called "hi-low", one shooting the back goal from high-low points of view, a jimmy-jib, a steadicam placed around the 13 m line and a "beauty" camera shooting from a high position in the stadium, following the production plan prepared by Infront (the rights owner) plus several customizations as the director in turn requests.
All cameras employed are Grass Valley LDK 8000 and model 6200; for high-speed image shooting the LDK 6300 are used while the beauty sometimes is a LDK 6000 model.
All shots are in high definition and the typical OB-Van engaged is equipped with EVS servers, precisely eight on a network, which are to handle all the input signals, all outputs, recording all continuous feeds from all cameras simultaneously and sending them to air as necessary. All cameras feeds are recorded for instant replay and slow-motion. The main video signal is fed to Infront control room, to the main producer (from SKY or Mediaset) and sent to the recording section.
Inside the vehicle a video matrix distributes all signals to two different video mixers which in turn, output signals which are at the same time recorded and distributed as necessary, while audio signals are encoded in Dolby multichannel 5.1. A video line is always sent to Infront and another generally is for SKY. So the OB Van produces two different video and audio feeds. During the Pre-match two different tv directors (for Infront and for Sky) take care of their program so the images and comments are very different; while during the match itself if no further additional requirements are requested, the feed is the same and common. Though it may vary when personalizations are requested by the broadcasters.
All graphics inserts are usually handled directly on the mobile unit due to the presence of a specific graphics computer, but every video main control room center usually has its own dedicated computer that receives commands from the live broadcasts and triggers the airing of appropriate hires graphics. This choice is due to the fact that the graphics are more and more dynamic and animated and therefore it often becomes too complex to manage them directly on the satellite uplink without losing signal quality. The commands of which graphic insert are to be inserted and when are all triggered by the mobile vehicle on the spot, on the soccer field. In practice the two computers involved in the graphics inserts are linked and operate in parallel, one triggered by the live events using a preview, while the second -that is physically placed in the control unit, generally several hundred miles away- receives commands via a network as needed. These commands travel via ISDN on six/seven dedicated lines and reach the video center carrying both audio signals and intercom between the director, the study and commentator journalist on field. Satellite signals transport use is always decreasing (less than 10% today) in fact all Italian football fields are wired by fiber optics. In each event two or three ob-vans are usually involved.
