Sony builds state of the art OB truck for TDC
Full design and build
SYDNEY, 4 October 2016 – Formed over 30 years ago by owner Michael Hassett TDC has grown into one of Australia’s true specialists in video equipment solutions. By providing a broad range of video technology resources and running a combination of the most impressive fleet of LED screens, large scale projection equipment, outside broadcast trucks and broadcast camera systems, TDC has been involved in some of the most prestigious live events in Australia. Recently the company had a requirement to expand their OB fleet and for that it turned to Sony Australia.
Hassett explained, “We had the opportunity to look at a number of trucks that were being built locally in Australia and the level of craftsmanship that was put into the Sony builds was clearly second to none. It’s evident in all aspects of our truck’s finish as to how much care has been put into the delivery.”
For Hassett and the TDC team Sony’s ability to provide almost all of the truck build package aside, it was the fact that both companies were able to work on a design together that gave them some significant advantages.
Hassett continued, “Working together with Sony made us feel that we would give the most value to our clients with the focus on flexibility, functionality and redundancy.”
Due to TDC’s well-known high standards their brief for the OB truck was particularly comprehensive. With that in mind Sony designed and built the truck with three levels of vision and audio redundancy, dual levels of redundancy should the primary multi viewers fail and ensured every piece of equipment that is plugged into the technical power circuit was backed up by a minimum of 15 minutes across three Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPs) making the truck a serious power tool in the Australian marketplace for its size.
Hassett commented, “Size and power were essential as, it was important to be able to provide a truck that could fit into all of the venues where doubles simply can’t fit.”
The new TDC OB truck has been built around an Imagine Communications-based central 256 x 256 routing core with in-built multi-viewers and Imagine glue infrastructure. There are also Sony main and standby vision switchers and Sony HDC-1700 and HDC-4300 cameras that partner with Fujinon XA99x8.4BESM box and HA42x9.7BERD-U48 and HA18x5.5BERD ENG lenses.
Alongside these are Sony monitors, Miller and Vinten camera supports, Riedel 128×128 comms with new smart panels and the truck has been wired for 3 XT machines to accommodate both 8-channel and 12-channel EVS XT3s. For sound a Yamaha CL5 has been installed as the main audio switcher with a QL1 as the emergency back up.
Clearly for the team at TDC the choice of cameras and in particular the lenses that would accompany them was a critical one. Sony cameras have had a big part to play across many aspects of the TDC business to date. The truck has two types of Sony cameras that can be used in either an ENG, semi build-up or full box lens build-up configuration and pair extremely well with the lenses supplied by Fujinon.
Michael Hassett concluded, “In doing our research leading up to the purchase we obviously looked at all available lenses, not just Fujinon’s. Apart from the stunning images Fujinon lenses give when paired with the Sony Cameras, it was the introduction of the Fujinon HA18x5.5BERD lens into the product range that really made a world of difference. This lens allows us to provide both a standard and a wide-angle lens in one, which fits perfectly into so many applications such as Steadicam, jibs, handheld and ENG cameras. For the first time we can now offer productions the wide-angle requirement but with the bulk of the power of a standard lens. At TDC we pride ourselves on working closely with production, coming up with alternate methods of achieving the targeted results and over delivering where ever possible to ensure that the client gets the best tools for the job that will allow the highest level of production values.”