SDTV Crosses 2014 Finish Line in Full Sprint

December’s Major League Baseball Winter Meetings surely ranked among one of the most frenzied free-agent days in the history of the event. Many broadcasters, including ESPN, were onsite to cover the busy days on the beaches in San Diego, and locally based Satellite Digital Teleproductions (SDTV) was on hand to keep ESPN at the ready as each big signing and trade broke.

SDTV supported ESPN’s onsite coverage of the MLB Winter Meetings in December.

“The length of the day and the amount of workload [were the unique part of this remote],” says Mark Parikka, operations manager, SDTV. “For their studio show, we ran the gamut from morning until night. This was breaking-news sports production, because we didn’t know what announcement was going to come out.”

The SDTV team put in busy days at the Winter Meetings, powering up the truck as early as 6 a.m. and shutting down as late as 10:30 p.m. The company’s 40-ft. HD ExpandoLink HDLA supported ESPN’s onsite studio production, which was centered in the lobby of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel.

The Winter Meetings also came online days prior to the company’s supporting Fox Sports West’s production of two state high school football championship games at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, CA. The eight-camera show made for a long day in its own right, with SDTV supporting two games back-to-back. SDTV works regularly throughout the fall with Fox Sports West during high school football season.

Having finished 2014 with a bang, SDTV has kept busy in the new year, working college basketball games and entertainment programming. The company has also made some recent technological upgrades, including upgrading its  transmission capabilities to MPEG-4.

“We want to be ahead of the curve in terms of client needs,” says Parikka. “This is something we can offer to a client even if it isn’t a requirement. I know a number of our clients were happy to see that.”