Sony is off to the races with NZRB

After extensive usage of its trucks and equipment, the New Zealand Racing Board (NZRB) wanted to update six of its SD OB trucks. Not only did it want to upgrade, it also invested in new equipment, all of which was from Sony Australia.

‘The agreement to purchase new OB trucks from Sony came on the back of Phase 1 of the NZRB Vision Capture Project which resulted in a rescale of the OB fleet from six to four trucks by using a remote production model for greyhound racing,’ Jamie Annan, studio operations and services manager of media and content of NZRB, explained. ‘This new model saw eight greyhound tracks serviced by Mercedes Sprinter vans and a complement of Sony cameras linked back to a centralised control room.’

The NZRB team worked closely with Sony for this project. They agreed upon an OB design that had the same capability to cover racing but was smaller in size. ‘Internally the truck had to encompass cost-efficient but scalable industry-standard capabilities,’ added Annan. ‘The combination of Sony’s HDC-2000 series cameras, MVS switchers, PWS4500 replay server and a Hawkeye judicial replay system offered us the perfect solution that met all of our requirements.’

Each truck consists of 12 HDC-2000 series cameras due to its ability to fit into the existing Triax infrastructure as well as its flexibility to encompass fibre. ‘They offered a good combination of cost vs functionality along with the added ability to have two slo-mo cameras integrated into the Sony server,’ Annan continued. ‘Despite being a smaller truck build, a fully functioning desk was still required as was DVE capability along with RAM storage and transition playback. The MVS switcher ticked all these boxes. Sony’s switchers are the most commonly used in New Zealand OB trucks, so freelancer comfort and compatibility was also a consideration in buying these switchers.’