Pioneer star at Manchester United!

 

Although many football clubs have now launched their own TV channels, MUTV has retained leadership position by focusing on two key areas: reach and content.  The station can already be accessed by 40 million homes in 44 countries including America, Japan and India, and throughout Europe and the Middle East, for example, and the channel is now planning to extend its coverage to Malaysia, China, and West and South Africa.

 

 As far as content goes, MUTV’s Managing Director, Peter Brooks, is in no doubt about the way forward. “Part of the reason why global networks want to work with us is the quality of programming. We broadcast a wide range of innovative original content six hours a day, 365 days a year,” he said. It’s an approach that is only made possible by harnessing the best available technology, such as a Pioneer plasma display with a touch screen interface.

 

 A pioneering approach
One of MUTV’s most popular programmes is ‘In the Zone,’ in which football pundits, including former Manchester United players, guide viewers through in-depth match statistics that are displayed on a 50-inch Pioneer plasma screen. Match data is captured between 8 and 12 pitch-side sensors and analysed by ProZone’s Match Analysis System, which gives presenters to the ability skip through the data and highlight images on the screen, creating a highly interactive and entertaining analysis of the match.

 

Until recently, PCs or laptops were used to work with the ProZone data. However, when Peter Brookes first saw a demonstration of the software on the Pioneer plasma with the touch screen interface, he was quick to understand the potential.

 

 “The display and its touch screen offer presenters the scope to create a visually entertaining feature of very in-depth football data. I saw immediately that we could adopt this set up in a studio environment and invested in the Pioneer system,” he explained.

 

Premier league quality
The Pioneer display used by MUTV is the professional 50-inch PDP-503 MXE. It is particularly suited to the demands of TV studios, where bright lights can appear to ‘dull’ colour and cause problems with reflections, and where displays can be in continual use for lengthy periods.

 

The PDP-503 MXE has the lowest power consumption in its class and includes a ‘pure colour filter’ to significantly decrease external light reflectivity and produce higher levels of contrast. The filter also reduces the unnecessary frequency of the red, green and blue signals to deliver greatly improved colour reproduction. The most important consideration for MUTV’s Chief Technical Engineer, Colin Renwick, is the quality of the image.

 

 “The display incorporates technology that delivers higher greyscale, more colours and true wide XG resolution (1280 x 768). The image is superb and, with no flicker due to its high scan rate we can simply shoot the screen being used without having to enhance the footage. In a studio environment Pioneer’s PDP-503 MXE is the best piece of equipment for the job,” he said.

 

The display is equipped with the PDK-50 HW2 Pioneer touch screen which transforms the plasma into a touch panel. Using a finger or the supplied pen, images and text can be drawn on the screen; data highlighted, deleted, changed, saved and printed, and all types of applications controlled. These features put a great deal of creativity at the disposal of the presenters which contributes to the energetic and lively feel of the show. The interface also uses a Windows ‘look and feel’ that is both familiar and intuitive to use.

 

“The touch screen is really easy to use. This is important as the presenter line up is interchangeable. The other benefits are that the touch screen sits around the edge of the display so there is no loss of clarity or brightness and it is extremely stable. It requires no calibration – even if the unit is moved or knocked – and in a busy studio this is very reassuring,” added Colin.