Supershooter 6, the newest member of NEP Group’s U.S. Mobile Units fleet, has hit the road with twelve frames of Cobalt Digital’s signal processing, conversion, and distribution gear onboard. The IP-powered, 3G, 1080p, HDR, 4K-ready next-gen NEP mobile unit is equipped with the technology required to support the demanding and evolving requirements of today’s live sports and entertainment content creators.
“NEP was Cobalt’s first customer when the company launched 25 years ago and we’re proud that they still come to us for the most advanced and reliable solutions for their fleet,” said Suzana Brady, senior VP of worldwide sales and marketing for Cobalt. “NEP is globally renowned for bringing content to life, and those events must be flawlessly delivered for an exceptional viewer experience. There is no room for failure or compromised quality, and they’ve trusted Cobalt to deliver market-leading and technologically advanced solutions they can count on for over a quarter of a century.”
For Supershooter 6, Cobalt provided NEP with 12 HPF-9000 20 slot, high-power frames packed with openGear® form factor cards, and Cobalt’s OGCP-9000 ethernet remote control panel optimized for live color correction applications. The configuration comprises 4K and HDR capable cards and supports up/down/cross conversion, audio processing, and color correction. The system maximizes space by enabling multiple capabilities such as multi-rate distribution, 3G/HD to SDI and analog down conversion, high-density coax to fiber conversion, and multi-path up, down, cross-conversion to be leveraged from a compact footprint.
Highlights of the elaborate system include over 100 Cobalt openGear Distribution Amplifiers from several of the Company’s card families, including the 9910, 9501, 9502, and 9410, to give Supershooter 6 a full scope of 3G/HD/SD/ASI capabilities in a compact footprint. Functionality includes dual and multi-rate reclocking, analog video looping distribution with EQ, and extensive downconverting and output crosspoint features. The 53’ mobile unit has numerous Cobalt 9905-MPx software-defined audio/video processing cards installed, the Company’s Swiss-army knife solution that provides quad path 3G/SD/HD UHD up/down/cross conversion, frame sync, flexible AES and MADI embed/de-embed, 3D-LUT-PRO, advanced color correction, and branding capabilities. Supershooter 6 also has the 9902-UDX 3G/HD/SD-SDI up/down/cross converter, frame sync, audio embedder/de-embedder with four analog audio and composite analog CVBS video input/output.
In addition, Cobalt loaded a sizeable number of options onto the cards for NEP including presets to convert SDR to HDR and back, 3D LUTs, 4K color corrector software, RGB color correction with gain, lift, and gama chroma, and luma clipping.
Since launching in May, Supershooter 6 has been deployed to support live production of the NHL playoffs, and the women’s and men’s College World Series.