Polish broadcast provider Ekstraklasa Live Park plans to produce live broadcasts of the Polish Football Premier League in UltraHD for the 2019 season. To meet this ambitious production goal, Ekstraklasa tapped German integrator Broadcast Solutions to build out a new OB van to accommodate both HDR and SDR workflows. Several products from AJA Video Systems, including ten FS-HDR Frame Sync and HDR/WCG Converters, a Ki Pro Ultra Plus recorder/player, and Hi5-4K-Plus and 12GM Mini-Converters will drive and streamline the setup.

“When we started work on the new OB van, we initially wanted to introduce 4K technology to the Polish market. Since first seeing HDR images for the first time a couple of years ago, I felt that higher dynamic range and a wider color gamut would have a bigger impact on viewers than just seeing more pixels on their screens,” explained Ekstraklasa Live Park CTO, Szymon Wramba. 

Broadcast Solutions set out to build a state of the art HDR-equipped OB van for Ekstraklasa Live Park, which will be on display at IBC 2018 (Outdoor, O.E02). Ten FS-HDRs installed throughout the truck will be used to handle HDR conversions and frame sync up to ten simultaneous channels of UltraHD HDR, and Ki Pro Ultra Plus will support signal recording and playback. For simultaneous processing of multiple camera feeds and monitoring of HDR and SDR signals, the truck is also outfitted with AJA Hi5-4K-Plus and 12GM Mini-Converters.

“Even though we’re producing in HDR, there’s still a demand for SDR production workflows. We need to be able to simultaneously produce 4K HDR and SDR signals, which means we have to be able to achieve conversions in various places across the signal chain. We tested many available solutions and in the end AJA FS-HDR seemed the obvious choice. Almost perfect conversion from HDR to SDR ‘out of the box,’ thanks to its Colorfront Engine, user-friendly interface, low latency and add-ons like frame synchronization. The low cost of a single FS-HDR unit will enable us to design full HDR 4K support for each step along the production path where conversion is required. And if we ever need to deliver an HD signal, we can use the FS-HDRs for four-channel conversion out of each of our ten units,” concluded Wramba. 

Rainer Kampe, CTO at Broadcast Solutions, adds, “In May 2018 we organized a workshop on HDR in Live Production Environments to show our customers the HDR solutions currently available on the market. One task was to give them an overview and to show them how the systems perform in a live environment. The AJA products came out as the solution with a plug-and-play approach, enabling fast and seamless HDR productions.”

About FS-HDR
FS-HDR, a 1RU, rackmount, universal converter/frame synchronizer, is designed specifically to meet the High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG) needs of broadcast, OTT, post and live event AV environments, where real time, low latency processing and color fidelity is required for 4K/UltraHD and 2K/HD workflows. Developed in partnership with Colorfront™, the FS-HDR’s HDR/WCG functionality is powered by Colorfront Engine proprietary video processing algorithms.

About Ki Pro Ultra Plus
Ki Pro Ultra Plus is a Multi-Channel Apple ProRes® recorder offering up to 4-Channels of simultaneous HD recording, or in Single Channel mode a 4K/UltraHD/2K/HD Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHR, or Avid DNxHD® MXF recorder and player supporting the latest connectivity including 3G-SDI, Fiber and HDMI 2.0. Designed to be both portable with a built-in carry handle or rackmountable with half rack wide 2RU high dimensions, Ki Pro Ultra Plus suits a wide range of production and post environments.

About Hi5 4K Plus
AJA’s Hi5-4K-Plus preserves your vision with pristine image fidelity and HFR support up to 60p for 4K/UltraHD SDI to HDMI 2.0 conversion needs. The Hi5-4K-Plus can also generate HDR 10 metadata in accordance with HDMI v2.0a/CTA-861.3 and supports HLG over HDMI. Hi5-4K-Plus provides a simple monitoring connection from professional 4K devices using Quad 3G-SDI, Quad 1.5G-SDI, or Dual 3G-SDI outputs to new displays with HDMI 2.0 inputs, for cost effective monitoring in professional workflows.

About 12GM
12GM is a compact SDI transport converter that enables 12G-SDI to Quad 3G-SDI and Quad 3G-SDI to 12G-SDI conversion. The Muxer/ DeMuxer supports 4K, UltraHD, 2K, HD and SD workflows and conversions from multi-link SDI signals to single link SDI signals, and vice versa at 12G, 6G, 3G and 1.5G bit rates. The 12GM can additionally support conversions between Level A and Level B.

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of video interface technologies, converters, digital video recording solutions and professional cameras, bringing high quality, cost effective products to the professional broadcast, video and postproduction markets. AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com.