Skehan Communications increases the capacity of its mobile phones with multichannel recording based on Matrox VS4

Su unidad móvil ‘Kiwi’ equipada con ocho cámaras cuenta con un sistema de grabación multicámara basado en la tarjeta de captura Matrox VS4 quad HD-SDI y el software VS4Recorder Pro.

Skehan Communications, productora y empresa de servicio con base en la región de Washington-Baltimore, ha ampliado sus unidades móviles con grabación multicanal basada en Matrox VS4.

Entre los últimos eventos que han cubierto destacan los premios Horatio Alger Association Awards & Induction Dinner, las conferencias científicas Howard Hughes Medical Institute Holiday Lectures on Science, el programa Baseball Tonight de ESPN, Opera House Live: Dr. John Concert para el Canal Smithsonian o Interludes DC: Jill Scott para la cadena TV One.

The company prefers to use its own material and facilities, which is why it rarely uses third parties. Kiwi, its mobile production truck, is equipped with eight cameras and is ready to adapt to any HD television production requirement, thanks in part to its multi-camera recording system based on the Matrox VS4 quad HD-SDI capture card and VS4Recorder Pro software.

The drive towards change

Before integrating the Matrox-based system into its equipment, the production truck already had six disk-based recording devices. Then, a customer needed to record eight camera channels and two program channels at the same time, so up to ten recording channels were needed. With a high cost per recording device, it was not an economically viable solution, it did not offer the desired flexibility of operation nor did it facilitate the recovery and mobilization of files.

Mike Skehan, CEO of Skehan Communications, began a search for a capture card on which to establish a multi-channel HD recording server. The solution had to be financially practical while not overly complicating the operations workflow.

Additionally, Skehan realized the growing need for redundant recordings at variable bit rates using different codecs. He sought to obtain “the greatest versatility and efficiency at the lowest possible cost.” The company had already experienced the transition from video tape recording (VTR) to file-based record and playback workflows. The time had come to find an efficient and affordable solution to meet customer needs.

Finding the solution

After exploring several hard drive-based options, Skehan found a few recording devices that fit his needs, but cost about $5,000 per recording channel. Then he discovered Matrox VS4. “The VS4, along with the VS4Recorder Pro software and the VS4Control feature, looked promising and seemed like an affordable solution,” says Skehan. “It had everything needed to record HD video for multiple channels.”

When Skehan Communications takes on a show, there are some variable recording needs it must meet. Recording a main program along with a backup is the most essential. However, many customers require their main camera, and perhaps a few others, to perform isolated (ISO) recordings. This covers possible errors when switching from one program to another. ISO recordings are also used during the post-production process to produce variable versions of the event. On the Skehan truck, all recording devices have routable inputs, so all four channels of the VS4 recording server can be used as input or output sources for the truck.

One of the needs of recording is the ability to share a common timecode with all devices. VS4Recorder Pro offers three options for setting a master timecode: embedded SDI, system time, or time of day. The system Skehan has built uses an external GPS-based timecode generator as a reference to your server's system clock, so all recordings share the exact same timecode.

Uno de los eventos más importantes que ha cubierto Skehan Communications es la cena y entrega de premios anual Horatio Alger Awards & Induction Ceremonies, que se celebra en el auditorio DAR Constitution Hall en honor a los nuevos miembros. Se trata de una organización de filántropos cuya misión consiste en promover y financiar la educación superior a estudiantes desfavorecidos.

This remote production usually involves four days of work: two days of assembly, one day of rehearsals and the day of the event itself. In previous years, only a few recordings could be made in ISO and this proved to be insufficient once it came to post-event editing. This year, ten cameras were used, including two robotic ones, and all recordings were made in ISO. In addition to the ISO recordings, two program recordings were also made. VS4Recorder Pro made it easy to meet all recording requirements simultaneously, so the event was covered in its entirety, with absolutely nothing missed.

Flujo de trabajo y ventajas

Having four channels of HD recording in a networked 4RU server chassis, the ability to record to multiple codecs, at variable bit rates, and the ability to record to a wide variety of storage devices, including a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), has made the process much easier for Skehan Communications and its customers. The new workflow, with the redundancy offered by RAID, provides an additional measure of security and reliability, which translates into peace of mind, compared to the previous workflow in which portable recorders saved files on separate hard drives.

Muchos clientes solicitan grabaciones basadas en archivos de sus eventos y los códecs disponibles en VS4Recorder Pro garantizan que Skehan Communications pueda proporcionar los formatos que necesiten. VS4Recorder Pro permite a los usuarios capturar vídeo en códecs reconocidos por el sector que pueden utilizarse con las principales aplicaciones de edición sin necesidad de transcodificar.

The efficient high-quality Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame codec up to 300 Mb/s comes in an AVI container. The H.264 standard is provided encapsulated in MOV or MP4. DV/DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO HD QuickTime files are provided MOV encapsulated. Global audio settings include audio codecs for .wav and .aac files with bitrate, bit depth, and stereo/mono options.

Customers can easily edit these files using Adobe Premiere, Edius, or any other popular non-linear editing system. The synchronized files produced by VS4Recorder Pro facilitate customers' multi-camera post-production process. As VS4Recorder Pro records files with H.264 standard, the video can also be played immediately without transcoding using a normal media player such as VLC or QuickTime. It does not require any special viewing software.

When asked for his opinion on the ease of use of the VS4Recorder Pro software, Skehan responded, "I found the user interface to be pretty clear. It didn't take me long to understand. I didn't even have to look at the manual."

Future plans

The first Matrox VS4-based quad recording device has been a huge success, and as a result, Skehan plans to build more and probably make them its primary recording devices. Some will be portable so Skehan can use them in HD production mixer packages or the production truck as needed.

By making use of the VS4Control feature of the VS4Recorder Pro software, any number of systems can be easily controlled in a master/slave configuration, eliminating the need to develop a custom control system by developing your own application with the developer kit. For example, recordings can be started simultaneously on multiple VS4 systems by performing a single action. With this configuration it is possible to have an unlimited number of recording channels, all synchronized.