The South African Homebrew Films renews its facilities with UHD solutions from Blackmagic

Production company Homebrew Films, a subsidiary of Atlantic Studios in Cape Town, upgrades its studios with professional products from Blackmagic Design, including URSA Broadcast cameras and ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K switchers.

Homebrew Films, based in South Africa, has installed as part of the improvements in its studios a system in Ultra High Definition 4K formed by an infrastructure of professional products of Blackmagic Design, including cameras Ursa Broadcast y ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K mixers.

Homebrew Films is part of Atlantic Studios in Cape Town and distributes a wide variety of programmes, from nature documentaries to soap operas and lifestyle shows, including Between Us, an Afrikaans version of the talk show The View and the local news Quela.

The technical director of the production company, Chris Gardner, required a studio system that could be quickly integrated and configured, in order to provide the company with technical advantages over competitors.

"Although South African television networks do not yet support UHD definition, it makes sense to move ahead to meet their requirements both now and in the future. And the best thing about having today's 4K technology is that it allows us to offer high-quality Internet transmission and audiovisual events, thus diversifying our catalog of productions," commented Gardner.

Improvements to the Homebrew studio include six Ursa Broadcast cameras equipped with Blackmagic Studio Viewfinders and Canon KJ20x8 2B IRSE HD B4-mount lenses, as well as two ATEM Camera Control Panel units completing the chain and used in conjunction with SmartView 4K and SmartScope Duo monitors, as they are easy to install in the racks and allow incoming signals to be matched.

For communication and tally, its workflow relies on an ATEM Talkback Converter 4K device that sends the main return and control signal to the camera positions via a 3G SDI connection.

Gardner explains that "the balance of flexibility and high image quality of the Ursa Broadcast cameras works perfectly in all categories of our diverse programming. Working extensively with light and bright hues, skin tone reproduction and color accuracy are essential especially during live productions."

A 12G SDI cable allows the studio's integrated audio to be transmitted to a Smart Videohub 40x40 matrix switcher, where each camera signal is recorded in isolation to an SSD and via a HyperDeck Studio 12G device. Likewise, professional recorders are used for the playback of video tapes.

Control central

All signals are fed to central control, where an ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K mixer and an ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel unit are used to produce the main mix.

The transition from a traditional to a web-based workflow has been very simple thanks to Blackmagic Design. “Simply send a main signal from the ATEM through an AUX output through a Blackmagic Web Presenter device installed on a computer and then broadcast it over the Internet with the Open Broadcaster program.”

“We were very impressed, not only with the flexibility the system offers, but also with the ease of design and installation," concluded Chris. "To put it in perspective, it took two of us just four weeks to design the system, wire it, install it and deploy it, including shelves and other elements that we custom built," concludes Chris Gardner.