SDS and DWR in Newzroom Afrika project
- Details
“The project was very exciting,” says Michael Gill of MGD. “I can honestly say that Thokozani Nkosi and Thabile Ngwato, the television producers and entrepreneurs, are the two most forward-thinking individuals I have ever worked with. Their way of thinking is so youthful, fresh and digital. The mindset behind Newzroom Afrika is that news breaks on your telephone these days and not always on TV. With an emphasis on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, the idea is to link what is on your phone to the studio, hence screens were an important part of the set brief.
DWR’s Bruce Riley, Andi Rodgers, Schalk Botha and Tylor Pugin worked alongside Jacob Mogale from the Install Crew for the installation and wiring. The Absen Screens have three MCTRL 4K processors all fed from three Calibre LedView770SV scalers and at the heart of it the Green Hippo Boreal+. Dylan Jones took care of the Green Hippo Boreal+ install and training. The Hippotizer has four SDI inputs, so from the main studio, content can be routed onto the screens in the studio as a PIP or background using multiple layers pre-programmed on the dot2.
Lighting design was by Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier and Paula Modise, who programmed on the new dot2 console.
Newzroom Afrika is on air 20 hours a day (they have a break between midnight and 4am), seven days a week.
(Jim Evans)
