Write a note on Outside Broadcasting Vans.

 

Write a note on Outside Broadcasting Vans.

Outside broadcasting (OB) is the electronic field production (EFP) of television or radio programmes (typically to cover television news and sports television events) from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. The van is known as a "production truck", "scanner" (a BBC term), "mobile unit", "remote truck", "live truck", "OB van" or "live eye".

 

A typical OB van is usually divided into 5 parts:

a. The first and largest part is the video production area. The television director, technical director, assistant director, character generator (CG) operator and television producers usually sit in front of a wall of video monitors.

b. The second part of a van is where the audio engineer has an audio mixer (being fed with all the various audio feeds: reporters, commentary, on-field microphones, etc.). The audio engineer can control which channels are added to the output and follows instructions from the director.

c. The third part of the truck is the VTR (Video Tape Recorder) area. The tape area has a collection of machines including video servers and may also house additional power supplies or computer equipment. Operators can also play back in slow motion or pause to show a key part of the action.

d. The fourth part is the video control area where the professional video cameras are controlled using camera control units (CCU) by one or two operators, to make sure that the iris is at the correct exposure and that all the cameras look the same.

e. The fifth part is transmission where the signal is monitored by and engineered for quality control purposes and is transmitted or sent to other trucks. The transmission is monitored by the truck engineers to ensure the people at home have a good picture and a high quality signal output.

Source: Wikipedia