A Total DCI Broadcast

One of the things that make DCI unique is being able to supply a complete broadcast solution to our clients.  Typically, the three departments of the company- Teleport, Remote Productions, and Satellite Trucks- operate independently of each other, each with regular clients who use our services to supplement their own capabilities.  Often, two departments will work together- such as a DCI crew using our fiber lines from the White House or Capitol, but its not too often all three get to work together.  When our client needed a complete field production and transmission solution at John Kerry's first speech as Secretary of State, they were able to make one call to DCI for the complete package.

Our Remote Productions department provided three cameras, mics, and lighting for a 2-person interview.  The DCI HD1 satellite truck uplinked all 3 paths to allow the show director to choose the cameras, and also downlinked a network return, all of which went through the DCI Teleport back in Washington.  Using multiplexer and DVB-S2 technology, DCI was able to use roughly half the bandwidth as a typical DVB-S satellite truck with single channel carriers, and still deliver a higher-quality video signal.  Since this client does not own full-time satellite space leases, using half the bandwidth resulted in a visible cost savings. As highly experienced satellite engineers, we are able to suggest new ways of doing transmissions to save our clients money. 

This was a complete DCI production that showcased how all three departments of our company can work together to bring great value and convenience to our clients.  Contact DCI to find out more about our remote production and satellite services. 

Buenos Aires Pope Party

When Argentinian archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was elected the new leader of the Catholic church, there was lots of interest in covering the story from Rome.  However, as the first pope from the Americas, many broadcasters also wanted to find out more about Pope Fransisco's background in his hometown of Buenos Aires.  DCI's flyaway, fresh off a quick 3 day trip to Caracas, immediately deployed to the capitol city of Argentina.

Buenos Aires is the second largest city in South America, and many of its residents- including the new pope- trace their ancestors back to Italy.  And just like in Italy, restaurants don't open for dinner until 8:00pm, and its not uncommon for people to be there well after midnight, enjoying the large steaks Argentina is famous for.  Buenos Aires also has a large number of Italian restaurants and pizza shops. 

Our setup was right on the sidewalk around Plaza de Mayo, the large square in front of the "Rose House", the Argentinean presidential residence and other government buildings.

 Across the street was the new pope's old church, and the backgroup of our shot. We took over from a local Ku uplink truck which had a previously-booked job to go cover.  Using a small SUV as an equipment shelter and 5500 watt portable generator for power, we started doing our live shots.

Since this setup was on a public street, not a secured area like our previous job in Caracas, that meant having to break down and setup the antenna and live position every day of the event, a process that took about 45 minutes each time.  The antenna breaks down into six segments for shipping, although we were able to take the entire assembled reflector off the tripod and put it into the back of our SUV, along with the rather heavy generator, and go park it in our hotel's garage.

There was some time one day to visit the neighborhood of Palermo and visit the Recoleta cemetery and its hundreds of ornate mausoleums.

The event cumulated with a live broadcast on four large screens in Plaza de Mayo of Bergoglio being installed as pope, around 5AM local time, however people gathered from about 9PM to watch a series of live concerts and music.

A few hours after the Plaza de Mayo event, the uplink was back on a plane heading home.



Quick in and out events are a hallmark of an airline checkable uplink.  Contact DCI to see how economical this small and powerful flyaway system really is. 

3 Days in Venezuela

When Venezuelan president-for-life Hugo Chavez died, DCI's airline checkable flyaway was the perfect solution to provide 3 paths of transmission to cover the event.  As mentioned in a previous blog post, having an airline checkable flyaway greatly reduces our response time.  We can deploy faster to breaking news situations and still provide the redundancy and high bandwidth transmission networks expect from larger flyaway systems.

New on this job was DCI's newest equipment acquisition, a linear 210 watt traveling wave tube amplifier.  There will be a blog post about this technology in the future, but in short this is the perfection of the TWT amplifier, a technology that has been around for decades.  It is smaller, lighter, and more efficient than our existing flyaway amplifier with similar performance.

  The next day after getting the call the system was ready to transmit from the Intercontinental Hotel in Caracas, where several live shot positions were already setup with a local C-band dish. 

We did a quick site survey at the funeral location, near a military compound, looking for a rooftop position.  Even though it was the day before the funeral, the area was mobbed with Chavistas, most of whom dislike the foreign media.  The Chavistas have a reputation among the 45% of the country who oppose them to be bullies and thugs, and in a city with 3844 murders in 2012 (compared to 414 in larger New York), they are part of the reason Caracas is one of the most violent cities in the world.  People in Caracas live behind bars in the own homes, even windows and balconies ten stories up are covered, while the outside of the buildings look like fortresses with 12' walls topped with high voltage fences.

Building owners and landlords are a group of people the socialist Chavistas disapprove of, and none of them wanted to be seen working with the foreign media, even though we offered them good money for access.  The only other option was to setup right on the sidewalk, but without reliable phone lines for communication and the uncertain security situation of doing live TV  in the middle of the Chaves crowd , we decided to give up on that idea and continue live shots at the secure hotel location.  While not offering the gritty "on site" backdrop of the funeral crowd, the hotel did have dramatic views of the mountains running through the capitol district.


We transmitted a 3 path mux signal in 9MHz on the SatMex 5 satellite, as well as used our receiver on a the local C band dish to downlink the pool feed of the funeral for recording.  After 14 hours of live shots, we packed up and headed to the airport the next morning.



While this was the quickest, busiest flyaway job we have done, it was a great demonstration of the versatility and capability of this unique uplink.  Contact DCI to find our more about our satellite solutions.

Blizzard Blog

 DCI got the call to head up to Connecticut late Thursday night before the blizzard.  I packed up all my Gore-Tex shells, boots, and warm clothes, tossed a show shovel into the truck and headed north.

Our coverage began early the next afternoon, as the snow began to come down heavily. 

 We set up next to the center of town in Norwalk, CT and went live until midnight. 

 Cleaning the 2.4m reflector is necessary to keep the signal strong. 

I headed to the hotel and had to dig the truck out after getting stuck.  The next morning we headed east toward the areas that were buried under almost 40" of snow.  We only made it to Fairfield before the highway became impassable.  

Our next live shot was at a gas station next to I-95 where people who had spent the night stranded in their vehicles were finally making their way off the interstate to fill up their tanks and continue on their way, along with an army of plow-toting pickup trucks.  The entrance to this gas station was not wide enough for the truck, so we spent a half hour digging it out so we could get in the lot. 

We helped free several non- 4x4 vehicles that were spinning out in the parking lot.  Unfortunately, the trusty shovel snapped while trying to break up ice under one car. 

 

A car dealership across the street was barely recognizable.  

 

After Fairfield was goodnighted, I had a difficult approach back on the highway; both sides of the truck were dragging on the snow banks on the entrance ramp, which I think was plowed by a pickup truck.  Luckily the truck had enough momentum to push through and get on the road.  The next location was Central Park, NY for the next day.  

While driving downtown, I spotted this 8' snowman on a Harlem street corner.  

DCI HD1 truck parked outside the Turner Center in Midtown.  

Scenes from Central Park in New York.

One of several dozen small snow creatures built by New Yorkers after the storm.  

People were sledding on every possible incline in the park.  

A group of kids toss snowballs on people walking beneath.  

Both of DCI's uplink trucks were covering this storm.  Contact DCI for more information on our field newsgathering services and teleport.