A keystone of the 400m2 creative production environment designed and built by Vodafone Germany and systems integrator Sigma-AV is a 15m curved LED wall for virtual production. Conceived as an idea in 2020, work to implement this project began in mid-2022, with the space just coming online. “There was a clear will internally to become masters of our own content creation,” stated Lukas Loss, digital content producer at Vodafone Germany.

“Previously, we have delivered a vast amount of video, event delivery and TVC production using external studios and partners. That production was expensive and lacked flexibility,” according to Loss. “With the building of our own studios, we could lower production costs and preparation time while simultaneously raising the scope of what our trained production team could deliver internally. Through the pandemic and beyond, we soon realized that virtual meetups and hybrid event delivery would offer a more flexible model for conferences in the future. As a tech company, we wanted to build a state of the art, future proof studio with extended reality (XR) that would allow that. But beyond that, creating an XR studio with an LED wall and green screen space unlocks new creative possibilities internally. “ 

A 15m curved LED wall for XR live production and events is at the heart of the main space. It also features a lounge area for talking heads or interviews, a master control room (MCR) for eight operators and a server room. The second studio area is a smaller green screen space with a pack shot area and an audiovisual podcast studio designed for up to four people.

Blackmagic Design was selected as one of the preferred hardware partners for video. Vodafone elected to deploy the URSA Broadcast G2 camera for its versatility. “We get the best of both worlds; 4K broadcast style live production for streaming or 6K cinematic production with shallow depth of field,” said Loss.

Combined with Blackmagic Fiber Converters, each camera channel requires just two cables: one for the camera, another for the tracking system. The remaining challenge for Loss was ensuring production didn’t run into moiré issues.

“We conducted testing to determine which type of cameras and LED resolutions would fit our budget, avoid any moiré and still give us the best image quality possible. In Blackmagic and Samsung, we have found the ideal combination to balance those requirements.”

Supplementing those is a Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Pro paired with the Blackmagic Studio Converter and a 21” teleprompter screen. In the control room, an ATEM Constellation 8K live production switcher and ATEM 2 M/E Advanced Panel run the show, with a Smart Videohub 12G 40x40 for routing video and remote camera control via an ATEM Camera Control Panel.