Grass Valley, Calif. - Louisiana-based Full Motion Productions recorded performances using AJA Ki Pro digital recorders for archiving and streaming, and put multiple AJA FS1 HD/SD audio and video converters to work supporting on-site, big-screen projection of live performances on the main stages at the 2011 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, held in April and May.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell is one of the world's largest outdoor music festivals, featuring more than 500 musical acts on 12 stages and drawing an estimated 400,000+ visitors. Full Motion Productions has been supporting the event's festival productions team for the past four years.
"All of the main stages depend on AJA in some way," says Full Motion Productions co-founder Nate Page. "Last year, some of the stages recorded to tape and some to Ki Pro. Because of how well that went, this year we went completely digital with Ki Pro. We also use FS1s on all stages to transcode signals and build a cable network to feed the IMAG (LED walls), monitors, and streaming feeds. We also use FS1s to down-convert signals to SD where needed, when we are working with one of our HD systems."
Highlights from Jazz Fest performances were streamed on RollingStone.com via AEG Network Live. In addition to delivering live streams, editors on site were able to take Ki Pro drives and begin editing directly, without digitizing, to cut pieces and promos that were streamed in a nearly live timeframe.
"The Ki Pro workflow is so much easier than recording to tape," says Page. "You get very high quality with Apple ProRes, and you don't have to digitize. At the end of the day, it's easy to transfer the media to a consumer hard drive and hand it off to the client. It's a much faster process. FS1 is pretty much an industry standard at this level of production. It's an amazing box that makes our truck much more flexible and allows us to manipulate signals, audio--and do just about anything."