BBC Studioworks has announced it has invested in a tapeless recording system ahead of the return of Strictly Come Dancing.
The Saturday night staple returns to Elstree Studios for its 15th season. For the fifth year in a row the production will be hosted in the UK’s largest gallery-served stage, George Lucas Stage 2. The 15,825 square foot production space specialises in large-scale TV productions, comfortably housing the show’s 360-degree ballroom set and 750-strong live audience.
Studioworks’ workflow for the dancing extravaganza features an 11 camera set-up, including one 30’ MovieBird Technocrane, four pedestal cameras, a radio Steadicam, and four handheld/lightweight tripod cameras.
The series will be using 11 Avid Symphony suites, which will handle up to 100 hours of training footage each week. Rushes will be ingested, logged, edited, reviewed, and incorporated into the Saturday night shows. The results show is recorded on Saturday nights, and edited through the night and Sunday mornings for delivery on Sunday afternoons, ready for the early evening transmission on BBC One.
Strictly’s sister show, It Takes Two, will be the first show to transmit live from Studioworks’ recently opened facility at Television Centre.
It Takes Two will be recorded via Studioworks’ new EVS XS4K tapeless recording system, allowing the pre-recorded Tuesday night shows to be streamed in real time to a new 180TB Avid Nexis shared storage facility at Studioworks’ Elstree post production village. Posterity AS-11 recordings of live transmissions will be processed through a Vidchecker AQC system before being delivered to the BBC Archive.
VT content for It Takes Two will be edited alongside material for Strictly Come Dancing at Elstree and will be delivered to TC2 at Television Centre via diverse HD Baseband video line connectivity.
“Our recent move to tapeless recording will maximise our clients’ valuable editing time and provide them with a secure and efficient solution in areas such as ingest and back-up. The market is increasingly moving away from tape technology, so this future-proofs productions that we facilitate at Television Centre” said John O’Callaghan, head of studios and post production at BBC Studioworks.
