BSI UK Delivers Welsh Football Homecoming Coverage

Tony Valentino, Technical Director, BSI UK, tells Broadcast Film & Video about a typical day's work at the business.

What's in a typical day's work for you?
The Welsh football team's homecoming for BBC Wales was a great project, and this is typical. It was done at very short notice, just 36 hours.

BSI provided a camera system on a bus and a live helicopter relay and downlink for the live broadcast.

We got the call on Wednesday afternoon to say that, depending on the result of the match that night, they might need live coverage on Friday if Wales should be knocked out of the game, or on Monday if they should make it to the Final.

We had Thursday to prepare the equipment, which included the new Real Freedom system. The game finally finished 2:0 to Portugal, however from the celebrations on Friday night, you would think Wales had won!

Late on Wednesday, we got the call to say, "It's on – can you get the wheels in motion?"

So we contacted Flying TV for the helicopter, and drove to Cardiff football ground and rigged ready for a test on Friday morning. The parades went on all afternoon – and it was all covered on various live news feeds – it was quite an adventure!

The helicopter was airborne for two slots of two hours, maybe longer, as there was a lot of aerial coverage. It was all over the news in the evening. It's good to be part of making history this way – it makes a difference to the day.

It was a great success, and afterwards, we got a nice email from the Project and Engineering Manager: "When it counts, there are only certain people in this industry you can rely on..."

What do you like about the Real Freedom kit?
It's the simplicity of plugging it together, and setting it up operationally. It is completely integrated and everything is controlled from the master CCU. Once the down-converters are set up, the telemetry is also there, and it is all controlled from the master receiver.

Customers say that it's very easy to use and they can get it up and running straight away. With just a couple of connecting cables, it's pretty well a plug-and-play product.

The radio cameras at the Cardiff stadium were Real Freedom systems operating at 7GHz. We were blown away by the performance – they were so easy to set up and they worked remarkably well.

Dry Hire or the full package?
Real Freedom is ideal for dry hire, as it's fully integrated and very straightforward to use. It's a popular solution for one-camera events. For example, it was used for the glittering Wimbledon Champions Dinner event at the Guildhall in London.

The kit goes out without a BSI engineer, and it's becoming quite a preferred choice – RF is no longer viewed as a "black art" where you have to have a support engineer. If two radio cameras and a mini specialist Point Of View camera are going out, BSI sends some of the technical team for support. For example, we provide a full turnkey service with engineering support for the Motor Racing.

Tony Valentino is Technical Director of BSI UK.

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(JP/CD)