By SVG Staff
Tuesday, January 14, 2025 – 10:14 am
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Recently Fox Sports Australia had a requirement to completely refit, refurbish or replace an aging hard set in their second largest studio. After a comprehensive assessment process, the decision was made to completely replace the set with the largest LED screen ever installed at the sports broadcaster. For that solution they turned to Magna Systems and their screen specialist installation partners PCB Digital.
Fox Sports Australia Head of Production Operations Derek Howe says the old set in Fox’s second largest studio had come to end of life and needed to be replaced.
“The question was, did we go with another hard set or an ultra-wide screen?,” he says. “After discussions with Neville Paterson and the team at PCB digital the benefits of the screen clearly outweighed having another hard set. We stood to enjoy fewer moving parts, better quality images, more production options and far more convenience. It really was a no-brainer.”
Fox Sports Australia tapped Magna Systems for a new ultra-wide set.
Fox Sports are always looking for new and exciting ways to present their content and better engage with their viewers. According to Head of Studio Graphics Mat Cooley, the new LED screen gave them all of the above and more.
Explains Cooley: “The screen is very flexible and gives us far more options than a hard set. In addition, when we are not using it, we can now rent out the studio and screen to external companies, so it is far more cost efficient too. The screen is in our second biggest studio which has gone from needing a complete refresh to being one of the best production spaces we have. The screen makes far better use of the floor space and makes set extensions seamless.”
Ironically one of the main challenges for Fox Sports wasn’t around the size and scope of the wall but the installation timeline, as it had been decided to use the new screen for two of the biggest sporting events of the year – the NRL Grand Finals and the Big Bash League cricket.
Howe says Fox had a very tight timeframe but that thanks to the professionalism and expertise of Magna and PCB Digital was no problem at all. The studio was gutted and cleared as the crates of LED panels were delivered and installed, with the commissioning phase taking just 10 days.
“In fact, ordering the screen, installation and commissioning took just eight weeks and was seamless in its execution,” he says. “It was a truly amazing feat of customer service and engineering.”
Cooley says there was no margin for error timewise and Magna and PCB Digital truly delivered above and beyond what they had promised.
“The build was impeccable as they started stacking over 190 LED cabinets from the ground up to build our 15-meter-by-3-meter wall with pitch of 1.5 mm and its 2.5-degree curve to maximize the studio space. When we eventually pushed the on button everything worked first time too. It was an incredible achievement on the Teams part.”
For Howe, Cooley and the Fox Sports production teams they now had a state-of-the-art full studio-sized LED screen creating a more immersive and more engaging experience for their viewers.
Howe says images, both stills and video, look amazing on the screen and the workflow to get them there is very straightforward and the mood and feel the screen creates is instantaneous.
“We have a huge variety of shots we can now play with and creating promos and marketing campaigns are easy and cost effective,” he says. “In short, it’s now about as easy as it can be to create one or multiple instant environments on a 15-metre screen across the entire studio.”
For Howe, Cooley and the teams at Fox Sports the new LED screen has opened up a whole host of opportunities for the broadcaster. That said, both wanted to pay particular attention to the pre-sales, installation, service and support provided by Magna as the main point of difference for them throughout this project.
“The big difference between this project and almost any other for us was the service and support from Neville Paterson and the team at PCB Digital,” adds Howe. “They actually listened to what we wanted and were happy to work with exactly what we needed. They were calm, polite and extremely professional. Believe me, there are very few technology suppliers who work this way and Magna truly stands out from the crowd. We very much felt part of the team and it was an absolutely seamless process from purchase to installation and commissioning. I’m not overstating it by saying it was a near perfect process by Magna and PCB Digital from start to finish and again, that is very rare these days.”
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