From 4 to 7 May, Spain’s famous department store opened its doors to some of the best local and international fashion designers featuring the latest ready-to-wear collections of Francis Montesinos, Dolores Cortés, Carlos Haro, Liz Clairborne New York, Decenio, Armand Bassi and Gant Women among others. The four day event was covered by Spanish TV production service provider LevanteTV (Grupo Editorial Prensa Iberica) with the support of NewTek Specialist Dealer IDCromvideo.

“The coverage of such sizeable events has always required complex technical equipment and setup”.

The challenge: to bring a show of the best quality to television and web viewers at the best of costs and with the minimal equipment. “4 000 people assisted to the show and an estimated 20 000 people were to watch it on television and/or the web” said Joan Garcia, Technical Director at LevanteTV. “The coverage of such sizeable events has always required complex technical equipment and setup as well as highly qualified staff”. An option was to rent part of the equipment to set up a traditional production system; a rather expensive, complex and cumbersome solution

“With TriCaster, the entire production system fits into one piece of equipment”

LevanteTV took a step forward. They chose NewTek TriCaster to record, broadcast and webstream the show. “In our studios, we are using a Videotoaster VT5, which is somehow the “eldest brother” of TriCaster and we have got very good results. We got the TriCaster Broadcast with SDI inputs. This allows us to replace the VideoToaster in case of emergency; a relief knowing that this is a critical element of the system” explained Joan Garcia. Another reason for choosing the TriCaster was “the value for money”. “With TriCaster, the entire production system - mixer, play out video recorder, titles, transitions, streaming etc - fits into one piece of equipment”. “All our needs are met in one single box”.

Technical support and assistance

LevanteTV was equipped and supported by IDCromvideo, one of NewTek Europe’s Specialist Dealers in Spain.

“Beyond sales, our role in the event was to support and advise our customer, providing training, being present in the most critical moments, contributing with our knowledge. This event was of very high importance for our customer” said Sergio Ballesteros, IDCromvideo. "Our goal is to bring the best service to our cutomer and it is highly rewarding when our clients can rely on us for critical missions”.

“TriCaster considerably simplified the structure we need to produce such events”

“The production system consisted of the TriCaster, a switcher inputs monitor, an analog audio mixer, 3 cameras and both wired and wireless microphones. The lighting and the sound were taken care of by another company”, explained Joan Garcia. “Our team was composed by the Director, a CCU operator, a sound technician and three cameramen. Our presenter, Maria Sanchez, and the fashion expert Patrica Moreno were in charge of commenting the runway shows”. NewTek LiveText character generator system provided the producers the flexibility to update and make immediate changes in titles and graphics during live production. When asked what he thinks the strengths and weaknesses of the TriCaster are, Joan Garcia said: “The system is stable and the setup simple."

“We can now offer coverage for this type of event with minimal equipment and guaranteed success”.

With NewTek’s TriCaster BROADCAST LevanteTV succeeded in bringing the best of the show to television and web viewers without incurring the expenses and resources of traditional equipment used to produce big events. “We are very pleased with the results” said Joan Garcia. “The coverage of such sizeable events has always required complex technical equipment and setup as well as highly qualified staff. Today, TriCaster BROADCAST considerably simplified the structure we need. We can now offer coverage for this type of event with minimal equipment and guaranteed success”.