The 2019 WTT world tennis tournament in streaming will be held with the JVC mobile studio

TDS Media, the production company in charge of covering the WTT 2019, opts for the JVC solution as a single operator to control the signals from the different cameras, as well as create the replays and launch the advertising content.

The tournament United States World Team Tennis will be broadcast on direct streaming and for the second consecutive year with a multi-camera mobile production system based on 4 GY-HM620 cameras of JVC and the production system ProHD Studio 4000 de Streamstar.

The 2019 season of this tournament begins on July 14 and lasts until August 3, with matches being played in 8 locations throughout the US. If there is any tournament in the United States that is causing a sensation besides the US Open, it is the World Team Tennis, a league different from what we are used to seeing outside the US that pits the best players of the moment and also of yesterday against each other. This tournament was created in 1974 in a different format than the one we are used to in the distribution of players or the number of sets and matches. The court is painted in various colors and the players have their names on their backs for easy identification.

In previous editions, the broadcast had been done in a traditional way using a mobile unit with all its technical and human equipment, with a high total production cost and which sometimes limited the ability to provide extensive coverage of the tournament as it was held in different venues. In last year's edition, WTT decided to implement its own production team with image distribution capacity that would allow any match to be broadcast live on DTT and online platforms.

Once the project was approved, production was assigned to the production company TDS Media de Pittsburgh, which only had 50 days before the first game to do the engineering, implement and deliver the different systems, in addition to training the different teams that were going to be on the field producing.

Doug Sicchitano, director of TDS Media, chose Streamstar's ProHD Studio 4000 mobile production system (marketed in Europe as SX4) because it was the ideal solution that allowed it to meet all the requirements demanded by the WTT and also be able to use a single operator to control the signals from the different cameras, as well as create replays and launch advertising content. “Based on what WTT asked us for, this JVC solution was the best solution we found on the market,” he explained. "The user interface resembles a simple mobile phone application. It is so intuitive that thanks to it we were able to train all the operators in just a couple of hours."

The WTT had participants in New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, Washington D.C., Orange County (California), Springfield (Missouri), Orlando (Florida) and Las Vegas (Nevada).

For this 2018 tournament, WTT covered 32 of its 43 matches using these mobile production systems; only the Springfield headquarters and 4 parties for national cable operators used conventional mobile units. All matches were streamed on WTT.tv and on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Twitch. In addition to this, some specific matches were delivered to regional sports stations for delayed broadcast. With an expansion of resources in Orlando and Las Vegas, the number of matches to be produced with this JVC solution will allow covering about 40 of the total of 59 matches of this 2019 edition.

“We are delighted to continue to rely on JVC Professional Video in 2019 to provide spectacular images of the WTT tournament to our fans around the world,” said Carlos Silva, CEO of World Team Tennis. “The mobile production system allows us to broadcast live with broadcast quality and at a very attractive cost.”

Equipment versatility

With the new mobile production systems used by WTT, a production with 3 cameras is managed by a team of 6 people and 2 commentators. In production control, the director selects the live images and replays of the plays, while a second operator is in charge of the sound and graphics. There are also 3 camera operators and a support technician.

Production directors typically use Streamstar's color-coded backlit keyboard to select footage and create replays, and the touch screen to play and launch replays. Although heProHD Studio 4000 system features an audio mixer and built-in character generator, Sicchitano decided to use a mixer Behringer because it allows you to directly send an analog signal to the ProHD Studio 4000 through a USB port and an independent laptop with NewBlueFX Titler Live 3 for the producer. The programs are recorded on a Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio Mini and the streaming is generated by a Teradek VidiU Pro, leaving the ProHD Studio 4000 as a backup device for both.

The arrangement of the 3 cameras normally includes one of them for shots from above and two others at court level and on each side of the net for shots of the player and the bench. The fourth input of the ProHD Studio 4000 is used for the Hawk-Eye SMART Replay system which uses the WTT to assist linesmen on difficult balls and also to provide data to live production. WTT inserts ads during game breaks which are then saved and organized into separate playlists and then launched from the ProHD Studio 4000's player.

Sicchitano decided on the camera model GY-HM620 for its powerful integrated optics Fujinon 23x with manual iris, zoom and focus rings. “There aren't many cameras on the market with a 23X zoom optic, so that was a key factor in my decision,” Sicchitano said. "The color profiles included in the JVC camera are excellent and create sharp and bright colors. And then there is the price factor. A combination of advantages that we could not ignore."