Vision for ABP Marathon

Media Technology’s Outside Broadcast truck was on hand again at the ABP Marathon in Southampton to provide vision services for the event organisers. The crew mainly comprised second year students studying the Television Operations unit as it formed part of their assessment. These students are enrolled on BSc (Hons) Television Production Technology or BSc (Hons) Broadcast Systems Engineering courses. They may not have run in the marathon but they ran three Ikegami systems cameras as well as a fourth camera mounted on a jib for overhead shots.  The output fed local LED screens and was streamed online via Facebook Live using an AJA Helo. Third year BSc (Hons) Broadcast Systems Engineering student George Allen helped them to run graphics for timers, leader boards and live updates of the finish line using a Ross Xpression Go system. The OB trunk’s vision system was also used to produce HD slates for advertisers and VT playback of previous event highlights and sponsor videos.

The event was a really good learning experience for the students as there were a number of technical difficulties during the day, which they had to fault-find and resolve. Nothing compares to the pressure of a live event but the students did well to keep things running.

The Media Technology programme strongly believes in problem-based learning and practical assessments such as this allow the students to demonstrate their ability to apply their learning to real-world scenarios. Well done to all involved.