Day: Jul 19, 2019

OneSoccer acquires rights in Canada to Mexico’s LigaMX Coverage in English and Spanish begins with first round on July 20th

Posted on by contentntek in Broadcast & Playout, News, Production & Post Production

The deal was sealed by parent company MEDIAPRO Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of Spanish media giant MEDIAPRO, which earlier this year became the long-term media partner of Canadian Soccer Business and the Canadian Premier League.

Mexico’s Liga MX will debut on OneSoccer on July 20th, the opening week of the 2019 Apertura tournament, and will continue through the season with two top fixtures each round, covering the home games of league giant Club América, the most successful team in Mexico with a record league 13 and six cup titles, as well as the home games of Cruz Azul, FC Juárez, Necaxa, Pumas UNAM, Tigres UANL and Toluca.

Mexico’s LigaMX has long been a breeding ground of homegrown talent, including the legendary Hugo Sánchez, who honed his skills with Pumas before heading to a brilliant career in Spain’s LaLiga. Watch out for the current crop of local stars, including Antonio Briseño, recently returned from Portugal’s Primeira Liga to sign for Chivas, Mexico’s Gold Cup standout Rodolfo Pizarro (CF Monterrey) and playmaker Giovani Dos Santos, who has made the move from LA Galaxy to Club América. Foreign stars include Argentina international Maximiliano Meza (CF Monterrey) and veteran striker André-Pierre Gignac of France, who became the joint highest-ever goal scorer for Tigres UANL when he scored the winner in the 2019 Clausura title in the playoffs (Liguilla) last May. And of course, Canadian interest will be piqued by Toronto-born Lucas Cavallini, who plays up front for Puebla FC.

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Oscar López, CEO of MEDIAPRO Canada, said that “we know that fans have been crying out for regular coverage of the LigaMX in Canada, and we are pleased to be able to offer our subscribers two top games per week, with both English and Spanish commentary”.

OneSoccer subscribers will be able to watch the LigaMX at no extra charge, gaining access to a minimum of 38 games in 2019, in addition to over 40 Chinese Super League and Chinese FA Cup games, 100 Canadian Premier League games, all the home games of the Canada Soccer’s Women’s and Men’s National Teams and the 24 games of the 2019 Canadian Championship, involving all professional soccer teams in Canada.

OneSoccer also airs a wide range of complementary programming, including its weekly League in Review highlights show hosted by popular sports broadcaster Andi Petrillo as well as Kickoff Countdown, an insightful and irreverent league preview panel show fronted by soccer pundit Kurt Larson. From next month, OneSoccer will boost its weekly grid with additional original content, including daily news programs, mid-week magazine shows, interviews, features and other formats.

OneSoccer is available through the OneSoccer.ca website and the OneSoccer app, available through Apple Store and Google Play. OneSoccer also has an extensive digital presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, where news, photos, interviews, exclusive content, game-day clips and other content are posted continually, to keep fans in constant touch with the league and their clubs, and to bring the players, coaches and home cities closer to fans new and old.

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Litepanels Gemini 2×1 LEDs Shine Down on The 2019 World Cup of Pool

Posted on by contentntek in Event, News, Production & Post Production, System Integration

The Gemini 2×1 Soft LEDs represent a significant design shift for the tournament’s lighting director, P-R Event Production Ltd., which has relied on florescent lighting for past World Cup of Pool productions.

The 2019 World Cup of Pool brought together two-player teams from 32 countries competing in 9-ball pool for a $250,000 prize. For the 13th year in a row, P-R Event Production Ltd. provided the lighting for Matchroom Multi Sport, which is led by COO Emily Frazer. Matchroom Multi Sport produced the event for broadcast on Sky Sports in the U.K. and additional networks around the world.

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“On previous pool productions, we’ve always relied on large florescent overhead panels to light the table — but they’re heavy, hard to rig, and throw off a lot of heat,” said Paul Toley, owner and lighting director, P-R Event Productions Ltd. “For this year’s World Cup of Pool, we wanted to use fixtures with greater flexibility and functionality. The Gemini has features that are really unheard of with florries; for instance, the dial-in colour mode and special effects like flash and strobe really added excitement during breaks in the action. We were pleased with how well the Litepanels LEDs helped us achieve our desired look.”

For the 2019 World Cup of Pool, Toley and his team rigged an array of 14 Gemini 2×1 Soft LED panels high above the pool table with five lights on each side and four more down the middle, making space to accommodate the overhead camera. The lighting team was able to achieve the required effect by dimming the Geminis to only 30 percent of their total output, which means they will able to achieve the same effect with fewer lights in upcoming pool events.

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“Our lighting team was very pleased when our Gemini 2x1s came off another job. Compared to the florries, they weigh almost nothing, and the team was able to rig them in about half the time,” Toley said. “The Geminis bring a fresh and modern look to the lighting setup, and the ability to dial in perfect colour correction is something that’s really unheard of for this type of live sports event. Plus, there was a noticeable temperature reduction in the arena from using the LEDs, something the players especially appreciated.”

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Biamp Announces Acquisition of Community Loudspeakers and Apart Audio

Posted on by contentntek in Non classé

Founded in 1968 by speaker design pioneer Bruce Howze, Community Loudspeakers has a long history of speaker design firsts. Today, Community Loudspeakers is a well-established and respected manufacturer of a broad range of premium speakers targeting demanding indoor and outdoor applications including commercial, leisure, stadiums, and other large venues. Most recently at InfoComm 2019, Community Loudspeakers introduced the new L SERIES LVH-900 Beamforming Venue Horn, continuing its tradition of innovation.

Apart Audio is a strong competitor in full signal path functional and commercial and leisure audio solutions for small and mid-size venues including retail, food service, education, and small offices. It offers a broad array of speakers as well as amplifiers, mixers, controllers, and paging stations to make Apart Audio a single vendor solution for these markets. Apart has a well-established business in Europe and just entered North America in 2018, a market in which Biamp’s extensive distribution system can provide an immediate boost.

Rashid Skaf, Biamp President, CEO, and co-Chairman commented, “I am tremendously excited to complete this transaction. Building a comprehensive lineup of speakers has been a priority of mine as we move to position Biamp as a full line provider of professional audiovisual solutions. Acquiring Apart Audio and Community Loudspeakers was my preferred route to accomplishing that quickly with incredibly strong and respected brands. The many products added to our portfolio give us powerful positions in several key growth markets for Biamp — most notably retail, hospitality, restaurants, stadiums, and outdoor venues. With this move, Biamp has clearly established itself as a leader in the pro AV market.”

 

“I am thrilled that Community Loudspeakers and Apart Audio are joining the Biamp family. The great product complementarity and geographical fit strengthen my belief that we are now part of one of the strongest and most respected AV solutions providers and that we will be able to offer best in class solutions to our channel partners and end users. I want to thank 3d Investors for their hands-on support and guidance during the last ten years that helped our company grow into a worldwide installed sound specialist,” added Kris Vermuyten, CEO of Apart Audio.

Biamp is a leader in professional audio systems for business, education, and government facilities. Under Skaf’s direction, Biamp has charted an aggressive growth strategy that blends organic product line and distribution expansion with entry into new markets via acquisition. The addition of Audioprof Group International comes just seven months after the company acquired Cambridge Sound Management, which made Biamp the world leader in sound masking systems. Biamp currently offers a wide range of audiovisual solutions that facilitate communication and collaboration in conference rooms, lecture halls, auditoria, and now hospitality and retail, as well as paging and notification for open areas like offices, concourses, stadiums, retail centers, and casinos.

Community Loudspeakers and Apart Audio will join Biamp as product families within the company’s portfolio, with business functions gradually blending to form a single Biamp business.

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Digital Alert Systems Issues Guidance for Aug. 7 Mandatory National EAS Test

Posted on by contentntek in News

Digital Alert Systems announced guidance ahead of the next National Periodic Test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS), scheduled for Aug. 7 at 2:20 p.m. EDT. All broadcast and cable operators must participate in the test, which is conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

“This year’s national EAS test is happening almost two months earlier than last year’s, so now is a good time to start preparing if you haven’t already. We put together a brief with the necessary steps people must take and recommendations that will help ensure a successful test,” said Ed Czarnecki, senior director of strategy and government affairs for Monroe Electronics and Digital Alert Systems. “The FCC issued a report on the outcome of the 2018 test and noted that, for the small percentage of test failures, the main problems were audio quality issues, equipment misconfigurations, out-of-date software, and device failure. Our readiness document can help operators avoid those pitfalls.”

An important part of the test procedure is submitting the required forms through the FCC’s EAS Test Reporting System site (ETRS). Form One, which covers EAS equipment status, was due by July 3. Form Two, which will track how the system performs on the day of the test, is due on Aug. 7. Finally, Form Three, which will cover additional detail on any test issues or failures, is due by Sept. 23.

In addition to completing the required paperwork, EAS participants should take other steps to prepare for the test. These steps include checking that EAS equipment is powered on and operating and that backup power is functional; ensuring that the equipment’s radio monitors are tuned to the appropriate monitoring sources to accept national alerts; and ensuring that the equipment’s software is updated. For example, Digital Alert Systems DASDEC™ and One-Net™ devices should be operating with at least version 3.0 software. Proper equipment configuration is also important, especially when it comes to the system clock. Participants should confirm their devices are synced to the right time and time zone.

“The Digital Alert Systems guidance is intended not just for DASDEC and One-Net users, but for any EAS participant. These national tests are most effective when everyone is prepared and the technology is ready to go, so we invite everyone to share the document within your organizations,” Czarnecki added.

The 2019 test will be disseminated via the EAS broadcast-based Primary Entry Point (PEP) system and not the internet-based FEMA IPAWS CAP message system as it was last year. The results will help FEMA and the FCC further assess how the national EAS would function should a national emergency occur when the internet and other forms of communication are unavailable. If conditions on the day of the test require it, the test will be rescheduled to Aug. 21.

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Anevia Receives Futur40 Award

Posted on by contentntek in Awards, News

With the support of Paris Europlace, MorningStar, the RSM global audit network, Euronext and the Fédération des Investisseurs Individuels (F2iC), and under the auspices of Olivia Grégoire (MP for Paris, spokesperson of the LREM group at the National Assembly and Honorary President of PME Finance – Europe Entrepreneurs), the 6th edition took place on the evening of July 9th at the Pavillon Gabriel, closing the first day of the International Financial Forum.

“We are proud to receive this award, which recognises the commitment of our teams on a daily basis to drive the company’s growth in France and worldwide and to grab all the opportunities that the market offers,” said Laurent Lafarge, CEO of Anevia.

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“Just like PEA-PME, which has collected almost 1.5 billion Euros, Futur40 highlights dynamic companies that contribute to enhancing the attractiveness of France to investors,” adds Jean Rognetta, founder of PME Finance – Europe Entrepreneurs. “It is therefore essential to highlight them, to further strengthen their brand recognition and contribute to their hyper-growth.”

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Sonnet Announces Professional Dual-Slot RED MINI-MAG Thunderbolt 3 Card Reader

Posted on by contentntek in Multimedia, News, Production & Post Production, Products

The SF3 Series – RED MINI-MAG Pro Card Reader features dual card slots and a 40Gbps Thunderbolt™ 3 interface. RED MINI-MAGs are the official SSD media for RED Digital Still and Motion Cameras.

Compatible with Mac® Windows®, and Linux® computers with Thunderbolt 3 ports, the SF3 Series – RED MINI-MAG Pro Card Reader ingests footage from two RED MINI-MAGs at the same time at their maximum speeds. Designed for demanding workflows, Sonnet’s SF3 Series card readers are built with rugged aluminum enclosures and dual Thunderbolt 3 ports. These features enable users to stack and connect up to six readers in a daisy chain to their computer through a single cable, and ingest footage from four, six, or more cards simultaneously. The Sonnet reader is also compatible with older Macs with Thunderbolt 2 or Thunderbolt ports when used with the bidirectional Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter and a Thunderbolt cable (both sold separately).

With the move to shooting footage in 8K and at high frame rates, RED MINI-MAGs fill up fast, and the need for a tool that accelerates offloading footage from multiple cards is greater than ever. The SF3 Series – RED MINI-MAG Pro Card Reader was designed to meet the time-sensitive demands digital imaging technicians (DITs) and post professionals face on location and in edit suites. By itself, one Sonnet reader can ingest files simultaneously from two cards at up to 1,060 MB/s, cutting ingest times in half (or better) compared to any single-slot reader available. Users can connect three Sonnet readers to their computer to exploit Thunderbolt 3’s 2,750 MB/s bandwidth and ingest six RED MINI-MAGs in the same time it takes to ingest one card of the same capacity via any single-slot reader.

Certified RED APPROVED, Sonnet’s SF3 Series – RED MINI-MAG Pro Card Reader is the most portable dual-slot MINI-MAG reader available. For digital imaging technicians (DIT’s) working multicamera shoots or in a small space, the ability to stack multiple SF3 Series RED MINI-MAG, SxS™, and CFast™ 2.0 readers in the same footprint is convenient, while connecting them all to the computer through a single cable is game-changing. Being able to ingest multiple cards simultaneously means that users can complete the ingest process — without swapping cards — in a little as one-sixth the time required using single-slot readers. For users who need to mount their gear in equipment racks, Sonnet SF3 Series readers include threaded mounting holes to support installation in a standard rack shelf, enabling side-by-side mounting of two readers in 1U of rack space.

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