Gestmusic Endemol migrates its “entertainment factory” to HD with Grass Valley

Crosspoint designs and implements a solution that allows Gestmusic to simultaneously produce several programs. The equipment supplied includes eight LDX 80 Première cameras, a Karrera production mixer with 3 M/E, an Nvision 8144 144×144 matrix and a Kaleido multi-screen system.

Gestmusic Endemol has trusted in the technology of Grass Valley in order to update one of its main studios, providing it with the capacity to carry out the production of two simultaneous programs in HD during each season.

To do this, the production company has acquired the Grass Valley distributor in Spain, Crosspoint, a total of eight LDX 80 Première cameras (capable of operating at 1080i and 720p), a Karrera production switcher with 3 M/E, an Nvision 8144 144×144 matrix and a Kaleido multi-screen system.

The migration of its facilities to high definition has been carried out in two phases “because implementing everything at the same time would have implied the paralysis of production for too long, not to mention the risk it would entail,” acknowledges Puigcorbé, technical director of television studios at Gestmusic Endemol.

Puigcorbé comments that "first of all, we addressed the implementation of the new HD production system integrating the Nvision matrix. In this phase, we verified that all the ingestion, as well as the entire flow of files from the studio to post-production, worked as expected. In the second phase, we changed the camera, mixer, multi-screen systems... The result has been exceptional thanks to the good planning and participation of the team."

As one of the most important content factories in Spain and promoter of formats that are successful around the world, at the Gestmusic facilities in Sant Just Desvern (Barcelona) there is a frenetic pace to simultaneously produce the contests ¡Boom! y Now I fall! in addition to the talent show Your face sounds like me. What is most striking is that Gestmusic carries out two of these productions from the same studio thanks to an ingenious deployment of different sets and a very flexible and versatile technological deployment.

"Nowadays, productions have tight budgets and the studio itself is surprisingly practical at all levels, especially from a logistical point of view. Everything is centralized from the point of view of internal and external resources. Having a single multipurpose space makes everything much simpler," says Pere Prat, technical director of Gestmusic.

With extensive experience in the production of musical spaces, Gestmusic designed a mobile unit that is a true studio on wheels with a widely spaced work area where audio has a special role. In this way, the production company combines the advantages of a studio with the versatility and mobility of a mobile unit.

"It's the ideal solution for us. Our unit is equipped with eight Grass Valley LDX 80 Première cameras switchable between 1080i and 720p. But it can handle up to ten. We have a Grass Valley Karrera 3M/E production switcher and two servers EVS XS3 with eight channels capable of recording and playback. It is a solution that allows us to record on more channels if necessary, but also provides a secure configuration since we have a backup copy. If we lost a server, it would not be a big problem since our production would not stop,” says Prat.

And in this great content factory nothing can stop. Jordi Puigcorbé highlights that everything has been configured so that if any element fails, production continues. "We must consider that we produce programs that bring together many people. To Now I fall!For example, we have ten participants, plus the audience, plus the production team. That is why we have put a lot of thought into our facilities with the aim of being able to continue moving forward regardless of whether unforeseen problems arise,” he acknowledges.

Gestmusic has always combined both the production and post-production of its spaces. However, keeping the studios and post-production areas in separate locations meant taking into account the high costs derived from the required bandwidth. With the new project, “we can move the media in both directions very quickly and have all the content generated from the studio in post-production the next day at the latest,” says Puigcorbé.

Gestmusic has improved its production process and reduced production delivery times considerably. “In the past, when we finished a program it took us some time to deliver it to the network for broadcast because it was physically carried on a hard drive or tape,” explains Pere Prat. Now, this entire process is carried out electronically, which allows changes to be made at one point in a program, for example, to include advertising or modify its duration to fit the schedule.

"Today, we have to be able to make changes to a show just before it goes on air. To achieve this, our server system can host between 30 and 40 shows, including raw footage, accessible both in the studio and in post-production. These servers are automatically synchronized over fiber optic connections. This gives us speed, but also data redundancy, or, in other words, security. Thanks to this workflow, we have been able to reduce costs at all levels without sacrificing reliability or flexibility,” highlights Prat.

Operational changes

Migrating to a high definition environment has meant significant operational changes for Gestmusic. As Puigcorbé acknowledges, "we have had to pay more attention to certain things such as the Moiré effect. This artifact has disappeared from some screens and has appeared on others with higher resolution. In Now I fall! "We always had Moiré that has practically ceased but has nevertheless appeared on the central 6mm screen, an issue that the production team has overcome by changing some of the shots to achieve greater soft focus of the background."

Regarding audio, an essential aspect in Gestmusic productions, the mixing console delivers MADI to servers and multiviewers. “This is wonderful because it allows us to easily monitor up to 64 audio tracks,” says Puigcorbé.

"Once everything was implemented, we realized that perhaps we should have integrated a hybrid matrix. In other words, taking the MADI directly to the matrix, instead of taking it to a recorder to embed and de-embed and route it with the video signal. Grass Valley's Nvision matrix offered us that possibility, but we were hesitant because everything would have had to depend on one piece of equipment, even though it meant more versatility. I'm sure we will address this issue in the future," he says.

The Gestmusic technical management team evaluated various existing options on the market but considered the possibility of working with Grass Valley for its cameras and its ability to make use of the triax infrastructure already existing in the production company's facilities.

“We had worked with Grass Valley cameras before, on shows like Your face sounds familiar to me, and we were very satisfied with the results,” says Prat. “Another key element was the remote panel for the CCU. It is a very ergonomic panel that is very efficient and versatile for image control. In programs that demand very rapid and radical changes, it is possible, for example, to go from shots that emulate images from the 1940s with a predominance of sepia to completely different ones with large changes in color, temperature, filters... and all of this immediately," he adds.

Another point in Grass Valley's favor was the flexibility of its camera system. "One of the things we really liked was the flexibility we have with their licensing system. For example, if a program requires production in 24p or 3G, we can do it without having to change the camera, we only need a temporary license. This is a great advantage. I think this was one of the strongest points when making a decision about the cameras. On the other hand, we opted for the Première series, among other things, because of the second filter wheel that these cameras incorporate since we needed a minimum level of effects on camera due to the types of production we do,” Prat acknowledges.

On the other hand, Puigcorbé admits that "another important consideration for us was the integration of all the different equipment. This is something that Grass Valley's breadth of solutions provides us, because the important thing at the end of the day is that all the devices talk to each other. If you have equipment from twenty different manufacturers, it is almost certain that you will encounter problems integrating them. Grass Valley covered all our equipment needs ensuring maximum integration."

Impeccable work

The technical director of television studios at Gestmusic Endemol has also been very impressed with the work carried out by Crosspoint, Grass Valley distributor in Spain. "Even if we had to do the project now with everything we have learned, we would choose Crosspoint again, without a doubt. Their service and availability, with the little time we had available for the installation
and the critical nature of the project's execution time have been essential for everything to come to fruition. It is essential to know that you have immediate support that responds at all times. Needs and difficulties can arise at any time, even on weekends, and we need to have the peace of mind of having support whenever we need it. Crosspoint's work has been simply impeccable,” says Puigcorbé.

"Having an impeccable customer service team that has solved any problem immediately has been very useful during our training process. We are talking about teams that we had not worked with before, even within the same brand, since the old Grass Valley products have nothing to do with the current ones. In other words, it was about working with an integrator like Crosspoint capable of proposing a solution, designing it, integrating it and implementing it successfully," concludes Puigcorbé.