Operating from a centralized, 305,000-sq.-ft. hub in Denver, the CMC specializes in the origination of national and regional sports channels (SD, HD, or 3D), leveraging its technical knowledge and understanding of the intricacies involved with running live sports. The CMC also operates an on-site teleport dedicated to occasional transmission that can support 72 simultaneous satellite or fiber feeds and is highly used for regional and national sporting events. In addition to channel origination and transmission, the CMC also provides studio production and VOD content-distribution services.

Most recently, the CMC has been at the forefront of 3D-content delivery. In addition to creating and delivering 3D content over a cable plant last fall — an industry first — the CMC managed the recent 3D delivery of the 2010 Masters golf tournament.

For more information, visit http://www.comcastmediacenter.com/content-gateway/.

“SS16, 18, and 20 are sister trucks,” explains Michael Fernander, president/GM of NEP’s U.S. mobile units. “You could take a crew from one, put them in the next one, and they would feel like they’re in their own truck.”

When SS16 parked at Flushing Meadows, the CBS crew had an opportunity to take its time inspecting the truck, and the reviews were raves.

“They came through, saw it, and said it’s perfect,” says Mike Werteen, SVP of sales and client services for NEP. “They know that it’s going to fit in perfectly from an ergonomics standpoint, and we know technically that it’s going to fit in with what their needs are.”

SS16 is currently without a full-time client contract, but, after several days in the US Open truck compound, Werteen says he has already had requests from clients to make it their own. “It’s the most sought-after truck because it’s new and everybody wants it.”

Big Shows, Quick Setups
“Because of the engineering firepower that [CTO] George Hoover and his team have put into it and the infrastructure that they’ve put in there, SS16 has the ability to do the largest shows and also set up very quickly,” he says. “It’s something that our clients have talked about for a number of years now, and we’ve been able to effectively do it.”

SS16 uses the same design as SS18 and 20, featuring a virtual-monitor wall, Grass Valley switcher, Calrec Sigma with Bluefin audio console, and EVS XT[2] servers. The truck is capable of operating with or without a B unit, so, when it’s finished with its NFL duties on Sundays, it can handle a midweek NBA or NHL regional game.

“This type of a truck will be able to handle 12-15 camera shows eloquently and still be able to go do a four-camera college basketball game, set up in an hour, and be out of there in 11 hours,” Werteen explains. “That is not something that has historically been a significant portion of the NEP business, but it is now becoming just that.”

Integrated Integration
As part of his Supershooter responsibilities, Fernander oversees the U-PARC dedicated integration facility. All design, integration, and workmanship for all of NEP’s trucks takes place at U-PARC, located a five-minute drive from Pittsburgh headquarters, allowing the company complete oversight throughout all stages of construction on its mobile units.

“Once we take delivery of the trailer, they take care of every wire that goes in,” says Werteen. “It’s almost like building a house: we’re able to say I want these cable outlets here and those lights to go there.”

Says Fernander, “U-PARC is where all of the truck design is done. They are part of the process from beginning to end, so the wiring people are part of our staff. We often don’t think about things like where every light goes, but they do. It is a unique capability, to have them such a part of the process.”

As with any new product, Werteen and Fernander always expect to have a certain failure rate when they roll out a new truck, but, time and again, U-PARC integration proves them wrong.

“The failure rate for U-PARC is zero,” Werteen says. “Because SS16 is a new truck, once some of the new modules were put into the field for this show and used, they failed, but that’s just a piece of equipment. Once those were identified, there’s no searching for why a certain wire doesn’t work. Overseeing the workmanship from our corporate offices and making sure that it’s up to the quality that we expect is significant for us.

“The core organization of any truck company is going to be the engineers,” he continues. “When they see the pride taken in the workmanship of a truck, that is truly regarded and appreciated.”

The UPMAX II’s algorithm produces a stable 5.1-channel version of two-channel inputs. Instead of active steering, audio elements are extracted using frequency-domain filtering and time-domain amplitude techniques. The bass-enhancement signal for the LFE channel is derived from the left, center, and right channels, allowing quick creation of subwoofer channel elements without compromising full-range consumer playback systems. The surround field can be infinitely adjusted via the Center Channel Width control and the Surround Channel Depth controls. This allows programming ranging from simple stereo to Lt-Rt to be appropriately reproduced from a 5.1-channel playback system.

UPMAX II accepts three AES pairs of audio. It will upmix the first pair and allow all three pairs to pass via a crossfade when upmixing is disabled. This allows the unit to remain in a 5.1-channel path. Upmixing and bypass can be controlled by GPI contact closure and applied metadata. UPMAX II also includes a utility encoder that accepts 5.1 channels and produces a two-channel LoRo, LtRt, or LtRt2 output; this encoder can be independent or can be fed by the same channels applied to the upmixer. Optional HD/SD-SDI I/O is available, allowing access to all 16 embedded audio channels. Audio can be processed or passed without modification from any embedded input pair to any embedded output pair, allowing utility-channel pair shuffling.

Based on the UPMAX 2251, the 1RU UPMAX 5.1 Channel Upmixer produces output that is completely downmix-compatible and nearly indistinguishable from the original two-channel input. Upmixing can be controlled via the front panel, GPI inputs, or metadata from serial or VANC (SDI) sources applied to the unit. An LED display, rotary encoder, and four control keys provide menu navigation and function adjustment. Dual redundant auto-ranging power supplies are standard. Bypass relays are provided for trouble-free operation in transmission critical environments. UPMAX also includes a utility encoder that accepts 5.1 channels and produces a two-channel LoRo or LtRt output. This encoder can be independent or can be fed by the same channels applied to the upmixer. Optional HD/SD-SDI I/O is also available. For more information, visit www.LinearAcoustic.com.

In hopes of engineering a deal for a new arena, Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther has agreed to delay his retirement. Guenther, 64, will stay on possibly through next summer or even longer to help in the transition of new President Michael Hogan and will use the time to acquire funding for the arena project, which he estimates will cost between $150 million and $200 million.

Boise State has unveiled plans for the expansion of Bronco Stadium and a new athletic complex. The project will cost the school more than $100 million. The football facilities are in need of a serious facelift as most have not been upgraded since the stadium opened in 1970.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale opened its brand-new Saluki Stadium to fans for the first time last week. Among the features at the newly completed stadium are a high-tech turf, video scoreboard, and new seating. The Saluki Way project broke ground just 17 months ago.

The new Bradley University Arena opened its doors last week to a crowd of 1,750, who saw the Braves volleyball team beat Western Illinois in the first sports event at the new facility. The crowd Friday night was the largest to see a Bradley home volleyball match.

The Ohio State athletics department will make room for better student seating by vacating 800 seats behind the team benches and scorer’s table on the south side of the arena. For 10 games this season — all nine in the Big Ten and one during the nonconference schedule — students will be in 1,400 seats stretching from the end of the Ohio State bench in the southeast corner to the northwest corner. The seats will be offered only in 10-game packages and located in the first 10 to 12 rows off the floor.

Texas State University has announced plans for the expansion of Bobcat Stadium. The school hopes to have 13,500 new seats on the north side of the stadium for the start of the 2012 season, increasing capacity to 29,500. The expansion is part of a concerted effort to elevate the Bobcats from the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) within the next several years.

The University of Richmond in Richmond, VA, has added an integrated video and scoring system to E. Claiborne Robins Stadium, the home of the school’s football, lacrosse, and track and field teams. The 9-ft.-high by 35-ft.-wide video display will be flanked by two custom scoreboards and integrated with an auxiliary video display measuring 8 ft. high by 18 ft. wide.

Duquesne University in Pittsburgh added a custom-designed center-hung video board as part of a $1.8 million renovation project for the A.J. Palumbo Center, home of  men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball. The four-sided display will feature video displays with 10mm pixel spacing, with each of the displays measuring approximately 7 ft. high by 13 ft. wide. Four lower-level corner displays will also be installed at the center and integrated with the center-hung displays.

George Washington University plans a new integrated video, scoring, and advertising system for the Charles E. Smith Center, home to GW men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, and gymnastics. The system will include a center-hung installation of four LED video displays measuring approximately 10 ft. high by 17 ft. wide, with pixels spaced at 10mm. Five digital scorer’s tables are also included in the project, each measuring more than 3 ft. high by 9 ft. wide, or approximately 45 feet total.

In addition to the A-10 projects, Daktronics has been contracted to design and install a scoring and video display system overlooking Provost Umphrey Stadium on Lamar University’s campus in Beaumont, TX. The focal point of the Lamar Cardinals’ new system will be the Daktronics LED display in the north end zone. The video board, measuring approximately 26 ft. high by 51 ft. wide, is part of the larger scoreboard configuration that will measure 48 ft. high and span nearly 88 ft. across. It also incorporates a custom numeric scoreboard, speaker cabinets with logo artwork, advertising panels, unique Lamar University identification display, and camera platform. Daktronics will also supply a new scoring system, and the company’s creative services division, Keyframe, has been brought on to create video content for the displays.

The University of Oregon’s new 12,541-seat arena, which is scheduled to open for the 2010-11 basketball season, received its crown jewel this week as crews used a 75,000-lb. pulley to lift one of the largest scoreboards ever installed at a college sports facility into Matthew Knight Arena. The finished scoreboard will have four HD video screens with nearly 2 million LEDs. The diodes are 6mm apart, making it the highest-resolution screen in the NCAA.

The season-long coverage is highlighted by 33 live match-ups from the Big 12, Pac-10, and SEC and eight live games featuring the CAA. The network will also provide weekly encore presentations throughout the season featuring the most recent games from the region’s ACC teams, Maryland, Virginia, and Virginia Tech.

CSN Mid-Atlantic opens its 2010 college football schedule this week with Northern Illinois at Iowa State, which airs Thursday, Sept. 2 at 8 p.m. on CSN Mid-Atlantic Plus. On Saturday, Sept. 4, three consecutive games will air on CSN Mid-Atlantic, led by the the Big Ten’s Illinois and Missouri from the Big 12 in St. Louis at 12:30 p.m.

The second weekend of CSN Mid-Atlantic college football coverage is highlighted by the University of Virginia’s visit to Los Angeles to take on the No. 14-ranked USC Trojans at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11. That day’s line-up on the network also includes No. 16-ranked Georgia Tech, who play at Kansas at 12 p.m., and Wyoming at No. 5 Texas at 7 p.m.

The network’s 2010 NCAA Football schedule also includes eight games from the CAA, which are produced by CSN Mid-Atlantic. Live coverage of the CAA begins on Sept. 18 with two games; New Hampshire at Rhode Island and William and Mary at Old Dominion. In all, CSN Mid-Atlantic’s coverage of CAA football this season features nine different schools, including area teams James Madison and Richmond. An additional 11 CAA games will air throughout the season on The Comcast Network (TCN).

Comcast SportsNet is also the home for exclusive encore presentations of the region’s three ACC teams,. The network will broadcast the most recent game from Maryland, Virginia, and Virginia Tech weekly throughout the season.

Several late-season Big 12 and Pac-10 match-ups are still to be determined and will be announced later in the season.

“BYU is nationally recognized as an outstanding university and for the history and tradition of its premier athletic programs,” says Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president, college sports programming. “Once BYU decided to chart an independent course for football, we both recognized it is a good opportunity to build and grow our strong 30- year relationship. With this agreement, college football fans around the country will see the quality and pageantry of BYU as well as the passion and enthusiasm of its supporters.”

The announcement comes just days after BYU announced that it was leaving the Mountain West Conference to become an independent in football. The school will join the West Coast Conference in all other sports in the 2011-12 school year.

“ESPN’s long history of televising some of the great games in Cougar football history was one of the reasons we reached out to them when we began this process,” says BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson. “We’re thrilled to return to an official relationship with the family of networks that has done so much for us over the years, and which has a well deserved reputation for high-quality productions. We’re also grateful to ESPN for accommodating our in-house broadcasting arm, BYU Broadcasting.”

An annual minimum of three games will air on ESPN, ESPN on ABC or ESPN2, including telecasts on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. At least one game per season will air on ESPNU. ESPN3.com, ESPN Mobile TV, and ESPN GamePlan will be able to simulcast any ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN on ABC telecast. BYU content will also be available on ESPN Classic, ESPN.com, and ESPN Mobile Properties. Any games not selected by ESPN will be available on BYU Broadcasting.

The festivities will also include a college-themed body and face painting station featuring each week’s school colors, ESPNU giveaways to fans (T-shirts, lanyards and koozies), and teh ESPNU monument (a 24-foot tall monument designed in the likeness of the ESPNU logo), which will be prominently displayed on each host campus throughout the weekend.

The ESPNU College GameDay Tour begins on Sept. 4 in Atlanta for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game pitting LSU vs. North Carolina.  Each week, the minibus will travel to the College GameDay site. The site will generally be determined the Monday of that week’s show and will focus on that week’s best game and story lines.

“We’re excited that ESPNU, a network so centric to college sports, is going to be a major part of the College GameDay fan experience this season,” says Jeffrey Gonyo, senior director of sports marketing, ESPN.  “By aligning with such an amazing television franchise, the ESPNU College GameDay Tour will literally place us right in the heart of college football each week.”

Beginning on the Thursday before Saturday games, the ESPNU minibus will organize a variety of college football-themed events, including pep rallies and tailgates. All activies are free and open to students and fans.

College GameDay will expand to three hours this season, providing an extra hour of coverage on ESPNU (9-10 a.m. ET) in addition to the 10 a.m.-noon coverage on ESPN.

The Preview Weekend includes The Mtn.’s telecast of the Rocky Mountain Showdown on Saturday, Sept. 4 between the University of Colorado Buffaloes and Colorado State Rams at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver.  Kickoff is 12 p.m. MT.

Ram Pre-Game Live begins at 10:30 a.m. MT and is followed by a special one-hour live presentation of Live at the Stadium at 11 a.m. MT.  Ram Post Game Live follows the game. James Bates (play-by-play) and Todd Christensen (analyst) will call the game with Roger Bailey working the sidelines.  Anchors Marius Payton and Bill Doleman are joined on the set on location at INVESCO Field at Mile High with analysis provided by Beau Morgan and Ted Sundquist during Live at the Stadium as well as at halftime and after the game.

The game will be available throughout the state of Colorado on channel 411 (147 Colorado Springs/Pueblo) on Comcast’s All Digital (AD) tier, meaning any basic subscriber with a digital box will be able to view the free preview.  The Rocky Mountain Showdown is available in HD throughout the state on Comcast channel 948 and on other partner cable providers taking the HD feed beginning at 11 a.m. MT with Live at the Stadium.

DIRECTV will carry the game nationwide on channel 616 (CHOICE and above package in Colorado – SportsPack outside the MWC “footprint”) with the HD game feed available on channel 616-1 (must subscribe to HD service).

“[This] started with an innocent email I sent to my boss at the end of last year’s high school football season,” explains NEWS25 Sports Channel sports director Lance Wilkerson.  The station had put together equipment and crew to broadcast a high school football game between two local undefeated teams.

“My goodness,” says Wilkerson, “it was a tremendous hit.  In the off-season we said, ‘what’s the chance of us doing this every week?’ Next thing you know, we have a sports channel.”

Wilkerson credits General Manager Doug Padgett for driving the enterprise.  “This was all his vision.  He has bought a lot of equipment!”

This fall, the station will broadcast a weekly high school football game produced by a newly-hired crew of 13. For USI, which doesn’t have a football team, the station will carry all home men’s basketball games and Wilkerson hopes they’ll add women’s basketball and spring baseball to the schedule, as well.

In addition to live game coverage, the station airs a weekly 30-minute sports show, After Further Review, which is produced and hosted by Wilkerson.

“This is my baby,” he says.

atterned after ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, he describes the show as “fast moving with a lot of opinions and interactions with Facebook and Twitter.”

The partnership with USI is, in fact, a 50-50 relationship.

“We wanted a partnership that was win-win on both sides,” Wilkerson explains.

In addition to shared revenue from the broadcasts, the school also has eight hours of programming time during the school year to be used in any manner the school chooses.

When the station is not airing local programming, content will be provided by Kentucky’s Wazoo network.  Additionally, any games broadcast on WEHT that include a team from Kentucky will be carried state-wide by Wazoo.

Wilkerson calls the new station a renaissance of his career. In a time when many stations are reducing or even eliminating local sports departments, WEHT has added to its staff, acquired new equipment, and made a commitment to local sports. He says Padgett has been getting calls from stations around the country asking about the channel.

“I think a lot of TV stations aren’t sure what to do with their secondary channels,” Wilkerson says. “I think you have to do local programming.”