|
| News Stories and Events January 2004 Archived News Stories 2003 Archived News Stories 2002 |
| African Cup of Nations The 2004 African Cup of Nations recently kicked off after a spectacular opening ceremony with the host nation, Tunisia, taking on Rwanda at the Olympic Stadium. Alfacam, the Belgian HDTV facilities company, is covering the event for the Tunisian organisers with four high-definition OB Trucks.
Alfacam are using two D-Cam wireless camera systems with full remote control of all camera functions for each game. The D-Cams are being used for interviews, player line ups, national anthems, sideline shots, as well as for close ups of players and team officials. 2004 will be a busy year for Alfacam, starting with the African Football Championship in January 2004. In June, Alfacam will use eight HD outside broadcast (OB) vans to cover all 31 games at the 2004 European Football Championship in Portugal for EBS-RTP. A highlight of the year will be in August, with 14 OB-vans covering the Summer Olympics in Athens. |
| Queen Mary 2 Launched in Southampton The Queen has officially named the Queen Mary 2, the largest cruise liner ever built. During the ceremony on the dockside, the Queen blessed the vessel before directing a bottle of Champagne at the ship's enormous hull. The bottle smashed as it hit the side of the £550m liner - traditionally, a sign of good luck.
The arrival of the Queen at Southampton docks to perform the naming ceremony was covered live by a Sky News crew using a D-Cam 'Clip-on'. For security reasons, it was necessary to park the Sky News SNG Truck 500 metres from the dockside, where the ceremony took place. Using a docking helix antenna, in place of the normal fanbeam receive antenna, the images from the camera were rock solid. Alongside the D-Cam 'Clip-on' receiver on the roof of the SNG Truck was a portable GPS Auto-tracking antenna system that was being used to receive live images from the Sky News helicopter, which has also recently been launched. The aerial shots helped to put the size of the new liner, which is twice the size of the original 'Queen Mary', into perspective.
D-Cam 'Clip-on' Used for Live tour of QM2 The live coverage from aboard the Queen Mary 2 included a tour of the ship, both above and below decks with the MVL-D receiver located 500 metres away from the dockside. The Sky News team are delighted with the way the D-Cam 'Clip-on' performed and consider that their coverage of the event was a, "stunning success". |
| Sky Covers BA223 Flight Delays Live A Sky News team used a D-Cam 'Clip-on' to provide live coverage from London Heathrow's Terminal 4 as British Airways flight 223 to Washington was delayed, due to security reasons, for the fourth day running.
The now infamous British Airways flight 223 to Washington hit the headlines when the flight was cancelled on New Year's Day, and the following day. With the problem still unresolved, Sky News deployed one of their SNG Trucks to Terminal 4 and used a D-Cam 'Clip-on' to provide live coverage from inside the departures area. Sky News, who have just taken delivery of nine D-Cam 'Clip-on' wireless camera systems were delighted to dicover that the camera crew were able to go anywhere in the extensive departures area, without any picture break up. As one Sky engineer commented, "It worked like a dream!". The first two D-Cam 'Clip-on' systems were delivered to Sky News in early December 2003, since when they have both been in daily use. On New Year's Day one D-Cam 'Clip-on' was used to provide live coverage of the start of the January Sales from the 'Bluewater' shopping center at Datford, in Kent. |
More News |
