University of Mississippi Chooses the Broadcast Pix Slate™ 5032hh 2 M/E HD Production System

March 18, 2009 - PRLog -- Billerica, Massachusetts - Broadcast Pix™ Inc. today announced that the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”) has chosen the Broadcast Pix Slate™ 5032hh 2 M/E HD live production system to produce game day entertainment for the big-screen video displays at its Rebels football, basketball, and baseball home events.  

Located in Oxford, Miss., Ole Miss offers a rich tradition of Rebels sports at several campus venues, including its 60,000-seat Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for football, Tad Smith Coliseum for basketball, and Oxford-University Stadium for baseball.  

The Broadcast Pix Slate is situated in a control room in the Ole Miss Athletics Administration Building, which is two-way fiber networked with the three stadium venues.  The Slate is used to produce live video shows–complete with graphics, animations, replays, real-time statistics, scoreboards, and commercials–that enhance the game day experience at more than 100 Rebels football, basketball, and baseball home games.

“We chose the Broadcast Pix Slate switcher because of its price performance, production value, and ability to cut our capital and operating costs significantly,” said Shane Sanford, director of Internet services and graphic design for Oxford-based TeleSouth Communications, Inc., the exclusive producer and distributor of Ole Miss sports programming.

With its 2 M/Es, the Slate 5032hh enables TeleSouth to produce and output two different shows simultaneously.  “This is especially vital for baseball, since NCAA rules do not permit us to have live video running on the video board while the batter is in the box because it can be a distraction,” Sanford explained. “While we just display a static headshot of the batter along with his statistics, we’d like to still be able to show live video and replays on the TV screens in the concourse and skybox areas at the venues, as well as on our lucrative game webcasts seen at OleMissSports.com by over 1,200 paid subscribers.”

The 2 M/E Link became operational in February 2009 and allows them to feed various outputs by controlling everything from the main M/E. TeleSouth now feeds the JumboTron, in-house monitors in suites, webcast, and various clean feed outputs to record decks simultaneously. Sanford anticipates the new functionality will allow them to eliminate one control room position.

When he first contacted Media Support Group–the Broadcast Pix dealer and systems integrator in Lubbock, Texas, that handled the design and installation of the upgraded control room and adjacent studio–Sanford was already sold on the switcher.  Ole Miss had been using a Studio 2000, one of the first Broadcast Pix switchers on the market, to run its game day operations for the past six years.

“In buying that one piece of equipment, we were able to eliminate two production control positions, saving greatly on labor costs,” Sanford said. “And because it’s an integrated live production switcher, we cut down on capital costs for external gear such as CG, DVE, still and clip storage, camera control, and monitoring.  The same holds true for the new Slate switcher, which goes a step further to include a router, 16:9 HD capability, and option for a second M/E.  From a budgetary standpoint, with this new Slate switcher, we get over $350,000 worth of HD functionality for less than a $100,000–and eliminate a third position.”  

The older Studio 2000 will be moved to a smaller control room, where it will be used to produce softball games and serve as a backup to the Slate 5032hh when two scheduled games overlap.  

Sanford said they decided to purchase the Slate for its 2 M/Es and broader feature set. One particularly powerful new feature, CG Connect, grabs player and game data from an XML file from a sports statistics service called Stat Crew and inserts the data into Inscriber graphics for display on video boards, Internet, and other applications.  It also queries Stat Crew for new XML files and updates the data automatically.

“CG Connect has helped us out a ton and it will help out even more come baseball season,” Sanford said.  “For example, we’re now able to have very sophisticated score strips running at the top or bottom of the screen. With CG Connect, our production values have gone through the roof.  We’re able to do very polished, ESPN-style broadcasts while cutting our production and labor costs substantially.”    

The Slate’s companion router handles all incoming camera and audio signals from the venue, including three JVC HD studio cameras with Canon lenses and one wireless JVC HD handheld camera.  The router also interfaces with six Fast Forward Video Omega HD DVRs used to record the games as well as facilitate instant replays.  The Broadcast Pix switcher also anchors productions from the adjacent studio set, such as pre-game, post-game, and weekly coaches’ shows.  

“Since we installed the new Slate 5032hh at the start of the 2008/2009 football season, it’s been a real workhorse for us,” said Sanford.  “With only three full-time staffers here, it’s helping us pull off miracles everyday.”

About TeleSouth Communications, Inc. TeleSouth Communications, Inc. has been contracted by the Ole Miss Athletics Department to produce its game day video boards, to provide streaming media of games by subscription at www.OleMissSports.com, and to feed Ole Miss sports programming to media outlets largely throughout the Southeastern U.S. As part of a $27 million facilities renovation, TeleSouth upgraded the football stadium video board to a Daktronics HD LED display, installed the Broadcast Pix Slate 5032hh switcher, and upgraded the control room and adjacent studio.  In 2004, Shane Sanford received an Emmy nomination for graphics design, and over the past six years, his team won several Telly awards for their work on Ole Miss sports productions.

About Broadcast Pix

Broadcast Pix is the leader in integrated live video production systems. Its Slate systems create compelling live video far more cost effectively than conventional control rooms.  Every Slate includes a switcher, multi-view, CG, clip and graphic stores, and aspect and format conversion. Slate streamlines production workflow because it’s so well integrated  together, and with systems that create clips and graphics. Slate saves 70% of the cost of buying a conventional control room, and then saves more on staffing, as even solo operators can create compelling video.  Then Slate saves again when upgrading to 3G 1080p – the future HD standard.  Broadcast Pix is based in Billerica, Massachusetts, with offices throughout North America and Europe. Customers include more than 1,000 leading broadcast, webcast, podcast, cable, entertainment, mobile, corporate, education, religious, and government studios in 70 countries. For more information, go to www.broadcastpix.com.  

Broadcast Pix and Slate are trademarks of Broadcast Pix, Inc.  Patented. Made in USA.

# # #

Pipeline Communications is a full service public relations agency, serving clients in the high-technology sector for a variety of markets. The firm is based in Montclair, New Jersey and has been in business since 1995.