ETC UK Projects BT’s Digital Music Awards

Oct 16, 2007 12:27 PM

E\T\C UK supplied Christie high powered video projection and an OnlyView multi-screen control system onto a 24 metre curved screen for the BT Digital Music Awards, a Ballistic Events project, staged recently at London’s Roundhouse.

The event honored the best in the fast moving world of music-related digital innovation and communications. It was presented by Sara Cox and broadcast on Channel 4.

E\T\C UK’s Andy Joyes was approached by Paul Corrick, from production company Reality, to supply projection for the event. It was the first time the two companies have collaborated, and Reality’s creative director Alice Lindars worked closely with Joyes and the E\T\C UK team to design and program the widescreen Awards nominations/winners graphics package plus live screen inserts.

The projection screen was curved around the rear of the stage in keeping with the natural architecture and charisma of the venue that was once a Victorian locomotive tuning shed. The eight projectors were run as four doubled up pairs, edge blended to produce one long rounded image and perspective corrected within OnlyView.

The Awards package and VT insert playback material was all stored on the OnlyView servers. Due to the spontaneous nature of Awards shows, much of this was not available until the afternoon of the show, involving some intense programming by OnlyView operator Richard Porter and engineer Simon Pugsley.

Luckily, the extremely fast operation of Onlyview—with no rendering time involved—helped them achieve everything in time for the doors opening. “We edited and added a good 25 percent of the show in the final period before doors opened,” explains Joyes. “It was a high pressured environment in which to work, and everyone rose to the occasion. I don’t think we could have done it so well using any other control system.”

In addition to all the walk up and announcement graphics, the E\T\C UK team switched four “live” windows around the screen for the show’s opening sequences, choosing footage from one full broadcast mix and three ISO camera feeds made available from Channel 4’s OB unit.

They also played back a wide selection of artist and organizers’ VT inserts throughout the show for which OnlyView handled audio as well as video. “Yet another area making this system so versatile,” comments Joyes.

Much of this VT content also arrived on site during the afternoon of the show, needing editing, conversion into MPG 2 format which is the optimum for OnlyView, and integrated into the show mix.

Paul Corrick states, “The service and flexibility offered by the E\T\C UK team was excellent—they really pulled out all the stops to make it happen.”