Leader, co-star of major sporting events in the summer of 2021

The test instruments of Führer have been used by a number of broadcasters and production companies to produce a wide range of sporting events over the past summer.

Specifically, several Leader LV5600 “True Hybrid” waveform monitors were used at various events to monitor all types of SDI and IP sources simultaneously. Also employed was the LVB440 IP analyzer, which provides in-depth analysis of the IP network via a low-latency HTML-5 display.

Kevin Salvige, regional development manager at Leader Europe, focuses his attention more specifically on the UEFA-organized European Championship, which featured 51 matches over 31 days of competition in UHD/HDR. As Salvidge states, “a number of Leader customers provided OB support, feeding UEFA’s master control room in Amsterdam ahead of distribution to media rights holders.”

Salvidge is referring to Leader’s ZEN series test instruments, which enabled OB service providers to monitor multiple transfer characteristics on a single display, ensuring that HDR and SDR video feeds were of the highest possible quality.

Color management with ZEN

Leader’s ZEN series played a key role in the Orion-Convert HDR to SDR color management process developed by the company Cromorama and deployed at the summer 2021 sporting events. Pablo García Soriano, founder of the company, comments emphatically that “Leader’s ZEN series instruments helped us develop the algorithm we use to create the LUTs now proving invaluable as customers start to provide HDR services from these major sporting events.”

The future looks bright. Adrian Young, managing director of Leader Europe’s rental partner Presteigne Broadcast Hire, reflects on how the summer of 2021 has unfolded and sets his sights on next year’s sporting events: “Major sporting summers like the one we are currently enjoying place a huge demand on rental companies. We knew the delays to the 2020 UEFA Championships and the Summer Olympics would have a positive impact on 2021. Demand, especially for UHDTV/HDR products, proved stronger than we could ever have expected with rentals back above the summer 2019 levels. Our Leader test and measurement products have been in high demand. With 2022 also having a large number of major sporting events, we see demand for UHDTV/HDR increasing.”