Opal’TV, the local television channel of the Opal Coast in northern France, has installed NewTek TriCaster systems to produce its live shows. The broadcaster, which started operating in late 2011, was loaned a TriCaster Broadcast from another local station last Summer, and liked its six inputs, global integration of physical inputs, the DDRs, etc; so when it came to upgrading its systems, TriCaster was first on the list. A TriCaster 855, with control surface, is now the backbone of its studio and is used to produce all of its live shows, which include news magazines, talk shows and weather forecasts, all of which are shot in virtual environments. Two TriCaster add-on software applications, LiveText and Virtual Set Editor, allow the users to add custom-made titles and graphics. They create their own virtual sets in 3D and integrate them in the TriCaster with Virtual Set Editor. The virtual sets capabilities of TriCaster gave Opal’TV‘s team the opportunity to create different environments for various programmes. “We use Virtual Set Editor a lot, we closely follow the future developments of NewTek’s software,” said Laurent Galet, Opal’TV’s production director. The station also has a mobile unit, producing sport shows and reporting local events such as concerts or feeding live into talk shows. The OB van is equipped with a TriCaster 450 and the LC-11 control surface. For live sport, it also acquired a TW 850 to add a replay channel. Besides TriCaster, the studio is equipped with a Snell HD 34×34, a Turbo T2 from Grass Valley and a Roland M300 audio mixer. Three remote Panasonic AW-HE100 cameras are used for capture, working well with the virtual sets. For mobile acquisition, the station chose JVC GY-HM790 HD cameras. Most TriCaster users chose the production system for three main reasons: cost, space efficiency and capabilities. “It appeared to us that the price performance of the TriCaster was unbeatable”, said Galet, “so many capabilities in such a compact box. No other system can rival TriCaster.” Everything was installed in a short amount of time and it also helped that Galet was “very confident in NewTek’s future development.” The station broadcasts local news from Calais, Dunkerque, Saint-Omer and Boulogne, with an audience of one million viewers, although it now wants to extend its reach. “We will soon enter phase three of Opal’TV’s creation and enhance our presence on the internet. Thanks to TriCaster’s streaming functions, we will soon offer Opal’TV in live stream,” he said.
