Vision View to showcase its Gearhouse Broadcast built HD OB vehicle at Mediatech Africa

At Mediatech Africa 2017, South African services company Vision View Productions will showcase its new state-of-the-art, mid-sized OB truck. The vehicle was designed, built and integrated by Gravity Media (as Gearhouse Broadcast) in the UK, and will be located on Vision View’s outside exhibit at the Ticketpro Dome in Johannesburg throughout the show. Gravity Media’s experienced systems integration team will also be on site to discuss a range of upcoming projects and highlight the importance of choosing the right SI partner.

The ten-camera mid-sized OB truck was recently delivered to Vision View and has mainly been used for live football, rugby and basketball productions. Using a locally sourced 26 tonne Mercedes-Benz Actros truck to meet South African fuel and emission regulations, Gravity Media modelled the workflow as closely as possible to its OBLite trailer that Vision View purchased in 2014. The new vehicle is equipped with nine Hitachi HD-SK1200s and one Hitachi HD-SK1500 slow motion camera and Canon lenses as well as two Q-Ball point of view cameras.

Inside the spacious unit is a Ross Carbonite Black CB3X vision mixer, two EVS XT3 live production servers, a NewTek 3Play slow motion instant replay system and a 32 channel Studer Vista 1 audio console. It also offers discrete 5.1 surround sound audio through an extensive set of Sennheiser microphones including the Esfera SPM 8000 with SBP800, four MD 42s and six MKH 416s.

Mafadi Mpuru, managing director at Vision View said, “To put it simply, this new mid-sized truck from Gearhouse is beautiful. We’ve been delighted with the build quality, how well it performs and how comfortable it is to work in. Its size gives us the ability to cover larger events, but still be flexible to take on a wide variety of jobs. The similarity in workflows and equipment with our Gearhouse OBLite trailer means we can switch crews between the two seamlessly.”

Nigel Haniff, account manager at Gearhouse Broadcast added, “As Vision View has demonstrated with this investment, there’s a growing demand from operators for mid-size and smaller OB vehicles that give them the flexibility to deliver productions of different sizes. Gearhouse has considerable experience in designing and building such vehicles on time and on budget that can help to grow OB businesses.”

Vision View became the first customer to purchase Gravity Media’s OBLite trailer, having been on the lookout for an affordable and more flexible OB option within a compact footprint. The unit supports six to eight cameras and houses a seven- to eight-person production and operational crew. It offers low power consumption, an ergonomic design and features a production gallery, audio workstations and engineering control area.

Mediatech Africa is the region’s premier media and entertainment technology trade event and runs from 19-21 July 2017.