BBC USES 28 CRYSTAL VISION VIDEO DELAYS FOR GENERAL ELECTION (July 2005)

Crystal Vision equipment played an essential part in one of the most talked about UK television events of the year. On May 5th the British public stayed up late into the night to watch Tony Blair being re-elected as the Prime Minister.

Using more virtual graphics than ever before, the BBC’s 12 hour live election broadcast took place in TC1, the largest studio at BBC Television Centre in London.

Video delays are essential for live virtual productions, and the BBC chose 28 of Crystal Vision’s ViViD variable delay lines for this important task. Eight were used to delay the cameras to match the computer-generated virtual graphics, while the rest were used to delay all the video sources coming into the mixer to match the longest timing virtual graphic path. Up to five frames of delay were added, depending on the source.

The seventh best-selling product last year, ViViD allows up to 12 modules in 2U, offers 52 frames of delay in 625 line applications and is very convenient to use.

Live virtual productions need a significant amount of equipment, and amongst the large number of chroma keyers used were five Safires, as well as four LKEY211 linear keyers to key moving graphics over the camera videos.