Fifty Frames produces large live events with the help of AJA Gear

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

Trained 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 confront challenges head-on. It's something he puts into practice almost daily as the owner of a boutique production company. direct event in 4K HDR and IP and in video streaming workflows for luxury car brands, music groups and large enterprises across Europe. Although their team is not afraid of a challenge, they have come to rely on AJA equipment to provide a level of security in high-pressure environments.

Fifty Frames recently produced a concert in UltraHD HDR for a German punk band, designed to avoid the performance anxiety the band previously felt when 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 close-ups of the stage and LED screen, Heinzel realized the enormous magnitude of the event. Recognizing the non-traditional nature of the concept and use of UltraHD displays, it opted to produce in UltraHD and take advantage of HDR to ensure more impactful visuals.

"The lighting situation was quite complex and we knew it would include changes from bright to dark and many effects that you normally don't see. SDR was not an option because we would need camera shaders all the time, whereas with HDR we knew we would get a greater dynamic range to be able to see all the light, but without it looking overexposed," he 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 three days of 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,” recalls Heinzel. "It's reliable, affordable and flexible. I can record eight HD camera feeds with just two units, which saves rack space. Plus, I don't need a specialist to operate it."

Next, Heinzel's team color-matched the mix of remote and broadcast cameras using AJA FS-HDR. Heinzel notes that “FS-HDR is an absolutely brilliant tool for color matching across cameras; it's truly a Swiss Army knife for color conversion.”

Unique solutions for unique challenges

Heinzel and his team have also taken on many other unusual 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 transport 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 pass them through an FS-HDR, they could tell the signal that it was HDR and pass it through the switch. “We tested it and it worked, so we were able to preserve the HDR metadata,” says Heinzel. “FS-HDR helped provide a simple solution to a really complex challenge.”

For occasional projects augmented reality (RA) that Heinzel's team encounters, has built real time rendering personalized with cards AJA Corvid 44 12G integrated for I/O. “We have done some AR projects with Zero Density and they are a lot of fun, although 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 its clients' productions and studio facilities, Heinzel looks ahead. SMPTE ST 2110 to simplify transportation 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 we will see many more SMPTE ST products appear next year 2110,” he says.

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