Fifty Frames produces great events with the help of AJA Gear

With the use of the technology of AJA such as Ki Pro Ultra 12G recorders, FS-HDR HDR/WCG real-time converters, and Kumo 3232-12G SDI routers, Fifty Frames Push the boundaries of live event production.

Formed to expect the unexpected, the founder of Fifty Frames, Christian Heinzel, sees every live event production or installation as an opportunity to embrace emerging techniques and meet challenges head-on. It's something he puts into practice almost daily as the owner of a boutique production company live events in 4K HDR and IP and in video streaming workflows for luxury car brands, music groups and large companies across Europe. Although their team is not afraid of challenges, they have come to rely on AJA equipment to provide a level of safety in high-pressure environments.

Fifty Frames recently produced a concert in UltraHD HDR for a German punk band, designed to avoid the performance anxiety that the band previously felt when it was aware of concert recordings. The three-day event took place at a former airfield in Berlin and attracted an audience of more than 150,000 fans. Upon receiving the close-ups of the stage and the LED screen, Heinzel realized the enormous magnitude of the event. Recognizing the non-traditional nature of the concept and use of UltraHD displays, he chose to produce in UltraHD and leverage HDR to ensure more impactful visual effects.

"The lighting situation was quite complex and we knew it would include changes from bright to dark and a lot of effects that you don't normally see. SDR wasn't an option because we would need camera shaders all the time, whereas with HDR we knew we would get a higher dynamic range so we could see all the light, but without being overexposed," she explains.

Due to the "clandestine" nature of the recording, his team strategically placed the ten remote, broadcast-quality cameras out of the band's lines of sight. Over the course of the three-day production, the team captured 75 terabytes of footage from the cameras using 14 AJA Ki Pro Ultra 12G. "The Ki Pro Ultra 12G was an easy choice," Heinzel recalls. "It's reliable, affordable, and flexible. I can record eight HD camera signals with just two units, which saves rack space. Besides, I don't need a specialist to handle it."

The Heinzel team then adapted the color of the mix of remote and broadcast cameras using HAHA FS-HDR. Heinzel notes that "FS-HDR is an absolutely brilliant tool for color matching cameras; It's really a Swiss Army knife for color conversion."

Unique solutions for unique challenges

Heinzel and his team have also faced many other out-of-the-ordinary productions. While working on an HDR live event project for a major car brand in Frankfurt, they realized that their media servers only had HDMI and Display Port outputs, so they couldn't Carry HDR signal. Together, Heinzel and his colleague Oliver Derynck they came up with a solution: if they could convert the media server signals to 12G-SDI and run them through an FS-HDR, they could tell the signal it was HDR and run it through the switcher. "We tried it and it worked, so we were able to preserve the HDR metadata," Heinzel says. "FS-HDR helped provide a simple solution to a really complex challenge."

For occasional projects of augmented reality (RA) that Heinzel's team encounters, has built machines of Real-time rendering Personalized with cards AJA Corvid 44 12G I/O. "We've done some AR projects with Zero Density and they're a lot of fun, even though the workflow is different," he explains. "Our systems for them are currently baseband SDI, but the goal is to move them to SMPTE ST 2110."

As Fifty Frames continues to innovate in its customers' productions and studio facilities, Heinzel looks ahead to SMPTE ST 2110 for simplified transport uncompressed average. "SMPTE ST 2110 will allow us to work with high-bandwidth media as we would with SDI, without compression, while introducing many benefits, from a reduction in equipment to a substantial increase in power and performance. Less equipment means a lighter load for travel, and with the right IP router, I can easily get 400 UltraHD signals using a 1RU device, which is amazing. I think next year we will see many more SMPTE ST 2110 products appear," he says.

For the time being, it plans to continue maximizing its KUMO 3232-12G SDI routers to support routing needs across projects. Heinzel concludes by noting that "Kumo 3232-12G provides us with an affordable way to get signals where they need to go, whether it's to shaders or for monitoring needs; It does well what it is supposed to do, and it is reliable. The ease of use is also perfect. You don't need to study the manual in depth to use it. That's important, because my team doesn't have time to mess around with the teams. We need our team to work."