Eurovision 2007: Visual setup demystified

You might get the impression that this blog is all about Eurovision only. Well, it isn't; there will be plenty of other Hippotizer projects soon, I promise!

But since Hippotizer V3 has definitely arrived at Eurovision 2007 and because everything went without the simplest glitch, Green Hippo gets flooded with positive feedback and Hippotizer V3 orders!

So I think the least thing I owe you now is a schematic overview over the setup. The following picture gives you a brief overview:


V3 Hippotizers used:

• A (Pan Mode, Dual Output), Stage background left and right
  
• B (Pan Mode, Dual Output), Stage Background middle
  
• C (Single Mode), Stage Floor
  
• D (Pan Mode, Dual Output), Catwalk
  
• E (Single Mode), feeded to the Big Screens in the Stadium on the upper left and right of the hall
  
• F: Remote V3 Hippotizers with GUIs
  

And here some more technical details:

• 2 Hippotizer V3 master units were used for timeline programming and running (1 of them as spare)
• 1 MOTU Timepiece that was receiving smpte and that driving the Hippotizer V3 Master over USB, one Motu spare unit was also there.
• 2 GrandMAs, plus an additional one as backup (thanks to Grand MA for that and especially Mr Marcus Krömer).
• Hipponet FOH with cat 6 into a Zyxel GS2024 switch, same with Artnet, Cat5 to a Zyxel GS2024 switch.
• The switches where supplied with miniGbic fiber transmitters and the signal was run from FOH to "serverland" over Draka tactical fibre to 2 Zyxel switches, one for HippoNet and one for artnet.
• In serverland all V3 Hippotizers connected to HippoNet switch with cat6 cables and Artnet with Cat5e cables.
• In Hippoland we also had a backup Hippotizer V3 following Artnet.
• All servers had identical media that was encoded on one Hippotizer V3 and then the V3 Hippotizers media syncronization tool took care of distribution to all servers.
• All custom media was made pixel to pixel so the pixel 1:1 function of the V3 Hippotizers played a major role.
• Raw media size: 245 GB
• Another thing that was very important is the fact that you could upload and distribute media *while* programming (new feature in V3!), very useful.
• All master layers where rotated 270 degrees because the Barco processors could not take care of that.
• We did then output dvi through Gefen DVI detectives to the Barco processors running the LED walls.
• Barco in use was Barco OLite 510, Barco MiTrix and a Barco R12 projector.
• There were 24 preview monitors in total: Samsung 22" with a resolution of 1650x1050 pixels.
• The content on the FogScreen was fed by one of the Hippotizers too (Hippotizer C?).
• Some Songs (e.g. Andorra) were using up to 6 HD Layers on each Hippotizer V3, and had 600 cues during only 3 minutes.

Brief summary:

• 5 HD units in use for show (A,B,C,D,E)
• 4 Backup units
• 4 Zyxel switches with Gbic + 2 spare
• 3 Control units (2 spares)
• 1 1000 feet tactical fiber
• 24 22" monitors

Hippotizer V3 timeline programmer was Mr Zok Sabijan and the MA was programmed by Mr Mikko Linnavuori. Lighting and Video was supervised by Mikki Kunttu.
Sean Westgate, Tom Etra, Nigel Sadler, James Ross Heron from Green Hippo helped a lot too (directly or through Skype!)

Special thanks for all that detailed info to Johan West from West Lighting, who took great care of this complex setup - and had another gig with multiple V3 Hippotizers the day after Eurovisions grand final. If you are keen on learning something from somebody in this industry, you definitely have to meet Johan!