BEIJING, MARCH 5, 2015 – Egripment Support Systems, manufacturer of high-end camera support systems and remote broadcast solutions for the film and broadcast industries, was on location in Beijing to help China Central Television (CCTV) capture the dazzling images of its Chinese New Year gala event. Equipped with the Egripment’s six meter TDT Encoded Crane System, supplied by local partner and dealer Guanhua Glory AV Sys. Co. Ltd (GHG), CCTV was able to bring the excitement of the event to more than 700 million viewers around the world. 

 

The CCTV New Year's Gala, also known as the Spring Festival Gala, features musical, dance, comedy and drama performances. It has become a ritual for many Chinese families, including those in other nations, to tune in to the show on Chinese New Year's Eve, drawing the largest audience of any TV program in the world. 

In addition to the TDT Encoded Crane system, CCTV opted for Egripment’s service package, which includes superior crane calibration and best-in-class lens calibration. The company also established full offset measurements and calculations of the studio coordinate system cranes, which were used for tracked cameras. These custom-made, short back-end cranes were operated in a one-man setup, giving CCTV the ability to use a long crane arm that could span across the audience seating areas to capture fan reactions without direct interference to the viewers.

“An event of this magnitude always presents a huge undertaking of unforseen challenges,” says Richard Villhaber, Egripment Vice President and Sales Director. “Egripment and GHG would like to thank all those involved in this production for making it such a huge success for CCTV.” 

In conjunction with the Egripment cranes, CCTV utilized Orad HDVG Rendering Machines for Augmented Reality Graphics and a 7Dvision graphics system for pre-production of a motion capture animated goat avatar. The Egripment System’s redundant data distribution of tracking data to multiple render destinations and graphics vendor systems fulfilled the highest demands for production quality. 

ABOUT EGRIPMENT

Founded in 1976, Egripment has a long reputation of manufacturing a wide range of camera support and remote broadcast solutions, for sale or rental, to TV productions, concerts and sporting events across the globe. With a product line that includes cranes, remote heads, dollies and tracking systems for cinema, modern-size/small cameras and ENG/broadcast cameras, Egripment is the only manufacturer that can offer adequate supply and service for events requiring large quantities of special camera support equipment. More information can be found at www.egripment.com.