Consulting and innovations

Remote concepts

Surround microphones, cameras for player tunnels and beauty shots in Bundesliga stadiums

On behalf of the DFL (German Football League), we developed and implemented remote concepts for select camera and microphone positions. High-end surround microphones (Schoeps) were installed in almost all German Bundesliga stadiums; they can be controlled and integrated directly at the TV compound. In addition to special mounts for beauty shot cameras, small, powerful and remotely controllable cameras are now positioned in the players’ tunnels where it is too tight for additional camera personnel. We also engineered and installed the associated broadcast technology, including the connection to the TV compound. The stadiums are now equipped with smart, permanently installed production solutions from TVN.

UHD und UHD-HDR

Market launch in German professional football

In 2016, we produced the first match in the history of the German Bundesliga and the first UEFA Champions League match in Germany in Ultra-HD for live sports producer Sportcast (DFL) and pay-TV provider Sky, which marks a new era in live football broadcasting. Thanks to a proprietary technical workflow, TVN is able to simultaneously produce a flawless UHD signal and deliver an pristine HD signal. This means that every TV viewer gets the opimum signal quality for their end device. It succeded thanks to numerous tests and in close coordination with the clients Sportcast and Sky as well as our technical partners Sony and Canon. With the TVN OB van workflow, broadcast reliability and the consistent quality of all produced signals can be safeguarded at all times. Since the 2018/2019 season, we have been producing football matches in UHD-HDR on a regular basis.

TVN 360 degrees live productions

We have been producing the TV images of all relevant music festivals for decades. With the advent of 360° cameras, our engineers have been working on concepts and workflows to integrate them into live broadcasts without any loss of quality. With 360° live broadcasting, the online audience gets an opportunity to look around the event location as they wish thanks to the all-round cameras. Camera positions at the stage edge or directly on the stage open up completely new perspectives and bring viewers closer to the action than ever before. They can select the cameras individually and change positions at any time. For additional innovative viewing angles, we even move the 360-degree cameras: On the track, they capture the entire stage set-up and all the key players as a cruise cam. On the wire, they fly over the fans in the auditorium as a cable cam – again with a clear view in all directions. Telekom offers their audience the new music experience on its own platform ‘MagentaMusik 360’. For them and other clients, TVN produces 360° live from festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Rock am Ring or the Parookaville Festival, at individual concerts by Peter Maffay, Marius Müller Westernhagen, Marteria or James Blunt.

TVN Live-Copter

optionally with augmented reality

TVN has specifically expanded its comprehensive aerial video expertise with focus on live broadcasting. The result is a setup of the highest standard. Impressions from the air, for example of stadiums and of venues or player arrivals, are produced in full HD quality and edited live into the broadcast. TVN is assigned for more than 100 live-copter deployments per year in high-quality productions for well-known clients and projects associated with the Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA European Qualifiers, Telekom Street Gigs, FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019, etc. The new perspectives were quickly adapted to the repertoire of sports directors and are increasingly used combined with augmented reality technology - the aerial shots are broadcast live with integrated graphic elements such as team line-ups or statistics.

Vertical Video

Changing media usage and the growing consumption of moving images on mobile devices require that a rethink of production in the usual formats. In the ‘Vertical Video’ project, we are a development partner of the DFL subsidiaries DFL Digital Sports and Sportcast. A showcase was already created at the end of 2019 in the football stadium in Wolfsburg, where TVN produced a vertical UHD feed parallel to a usual Bundesliga match using a specially designed vertical vision mixer and five cameras. The cameras were mounted upright on special mounts and in a separately set up control room the monitors were rotated by 90 degrees. With this technical setup, the DFL’s high quality standard could also be met in the format 9:16 – even in UHD. Initiated as an internal test, the response from the DFL and the trade press was extremely positive. Development of the innovative production concept is expected to continue.