AJA's streaming solutions allowed fans to follow the Comapedrosa 2020 Mountain Ski World Cup

The Andorran Mountaineering Federation (FAM) trusted local production company Imaginaris to produce live images using AJA streaming solutions, JVC and Canon cameras and a Roland mixer.

Mountain skiing fans were able to enjoy the Comapedrosa World Cup Andorra 2020 held at the end of January from the base of the Pyrenees to the top of Comapedrosa.

For this year's two-day event, the Andorran Mountaineering Federation (FAM) trusted the local production company imaginaries to produce live images using streaming solutions from AJA. In addition to signal distribution through Facebook Live, Imaginaris brought all the action to a large LED screen located at the station at the base of the mountain.

To set up and define the workflow, Imaginaris turned to 16 new Audiovisuals Andorra so that they could recommend the equipment and rent it. Comprehensively capturing the competition posed unique and inherent challenges, as the camera operators would be climbing and skiing alongside the racers and subjected to unpredictable forces of nature. Given the challenging production environment, Imaginaris also asked the audiovisual production company for help QuatreSisVuit.

Luis Casabella, owner of Imaginaris, highlights that "we were working at the top of a mountain range between 2,400 and 2,900 meters in the middle of winter with frequently changing weather conditions. To achieve high-quality live production with minimal latency that captured multiple angles of the race, we needed equipment that was compact, portable and, most importantly, reliable and durable. AJA products are rugged and easy to use, which made them more than ideal."

Imaginaris and QuatreSisVuit captured images of the race with cameras GY-HM250 de JVC, with cameras Canon XF705 also located at the base of the mountain to provide a different perspective. Each camera was connected to the other through links RF DwarfConnection, graphics systems for overlays and timers.

Using a capture card DRIVE Kona HDMI and capture devices AJA U-TAP SDI y U-TAP HDMI USB 3.0, all material and sources were fed through Telestream Wirecast Pro running on a Mac workstation. The output was then distributed to a mixer Roland to create a submix for output to a large LED screen installed in the complex and to streaming and recording devices AJA Helo H.264 for broadcast to Facebook Live.

Unpredictable nature

Casabella recognizes that "live production by nature is unpredictable, and unforeseen events that require last-minute changes, especially in a harsh environment like this, can be stressful, but AJA products give us peace of mind. Their tools are so versatile, you can almost always find an alternative way to configure or connect the workflow to solve problems. Kona offers high density, low CPU functionality; U-TAP works with almost any computer without the need for drivers and Helo is in a class of its own, minimizing risk while maintaining the compression/streaming separate from a computer.”

The departure and arrival location of Comapedrosa Andorra 2020 changed three hours before the start of the event, and the entire circuit was also altered 24 hours before, not to mention that the weather went radically wrong, so we saw many electromagnetic disturbances that interfered with our radio frequency equipment. However, we don't worry too much about it, because of our AJA team. Their products consistently do what is expected, regardless of the circumstances, with unmatched and consistent performance,” Casabella concludes.