The Japanese TBS develops new work dynamics with Blackmagic ATEM mixers

The ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K, ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K and ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel solutions enable TBS to streamline news production.

The Japanese chain TBS has developed a work dynamic to transmit news with solutions ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K, ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K y ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel of Blackmagic Design. The new system will also be used in the coverage of the next electoral campaign in the Asian country.

TBS is one of the largest television networks in Japan and has expanded its programming available over the Internet with the aim of offering up-to-date news on devices, such as smartphones and computers. In this sense, it has a YouTube channel for breaking news and another that allows satellite transmissions 24 hours a day, in addition to disseminating content on social networks, for example, Twitter and Facebook. These are created with the help of ATEM mixers installed at TBS' main centers in Tokyo.

Yoshihisa Yamamoto, a member of the News and Content Engineering Department at TBS, points out that "we upgraded our news transmission center as part of a general reorganization of the studio. When choosing equipment for the new work dynamic, we decided to use mixers that would also serve us for special coverage of the next election campaign, which occurs once every several years. This is a different approach, since, for this purpose, we used to build temporary facilities. However, it was strenuous to prepare everything from scratch at each occasion, so we took advantage of this opportunity to update the devices, so that they were more versatile and did not have to change them permanently.”

Hayato Aoyama, responsable de las transmisiones diarias en TBS, agrega que “antes solo usábamos en modelo ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K para emitir noticias durante las 24 horas, pero necesitábamos más entradas y salidas a fin de procesar los nuevos contenidos. Por esta razón, incorporamos un mezclador ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K y dispositivos ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel, así como otra unidad ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K destinada a las redes sociales”.

Los mezcladores reciben contenidos retransmitidos, señales de videograbadores y subtítulos. Aprovechando las 20 entradas del modelo ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K, TBS sends the images captured by the cameras to it and uses the additional inputs for subtitles. In turn, each unit is connected to an ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel device through a LAN network, in order to achieve more intuitive operation.

Tally, which are used to connect two video recorders to the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K and another to the ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K. He audio of the signals coming from the cameras linked to the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K are transmitted to a mixing console using a Mini Converter SDI to Audio converter. This is then sent along with the images to a switching matrix and each program is broadcast via a decoder.

Increased number of I/Os

Aoyama añade que “antes solo usábamos un ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K, pero a veces necesitábamos más entradas, por lo cual simplemente cambiábamos los cables. Ahora recurrimos a la versión 2 M/E para nuestro canal de noticias que transmite las 24 horas, y esto nos permite lograr una dinámica de trabajo perfecta con una gran cantidad de entradas para subtítulos, que preparamos con antelación a efectos de facilitar su emisión al aire”.

“El modelo ATEM 2 M/E dispone de un mayor número de entradas y compositores en comparación con las versiones de otros fabricantes, y su rentabilidad es extraordinaria”, manifiesta Yamamoto.

"ATEM mixers are intuitive and easy to operate. When there is breaking news and everything is hectic, we worry that we may make mistakes when using a mouse and computer equipment. Having a physical control panel gives us greater security and speeds up our work," concludes Aoyama.