Celebrating the Star-Spangled Banner Anniversary with Analog Way's Ascender 32

	John Lithgow hosted Maryland Public Television's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the writing of the National Anthem.

In honor of the 200th anniversary of the writing of the National Anthem of the United States of America, the Maryland Public Television organized an outdoor concert at the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland. Almost 4,000 people attended the concert that was also broadcasted live, worldwide, across the entire PBS USA network. Actor John Lithgow hosted this two hour live-broadcast event.

SenovvA, a design and management group offering services to the entertainment, special event, architectural/construction, and media service industries, was brought in to create the backdrop and to provide a great visual experience displaying several content feeds. The company provided five LED walls as main scenic element for the show, as well as a backdrop and camera interlink so that the audience could see the other parts of the broadcast happening at other locations.

Robert Ingram, project manager at SenovvA explains the challenges: "Our client was very concerned about the look of the LED walls on camera, its effect visually in the performance venue, and the ability to show the different locations that they wanted to display."

To feed the LED walls while providing outstanding visual effects, SenovvA selected Analog Way's Ascender 32, a powerful multi-screen seamless switcher. Ingram explains this choice: "The Ascender 32 was a cost effective way for us to get the number of inputs, scaling, and outputs as well as layering of effects / graphics that were necessary for this show."

The Ascender 32 served to route all the HD-SDI sources from the production and graphic/content trucks to the five different LED screens. It also served to create an area of interest and to map the walls, as there were multiple resolution of LED walls on stage. The system was controlled through the Web RCS, a web- based Remote Control Software designed for Analog Way's LiveCore series. A ShotBox was also used for recalling presets during the show.

Ingram lists the advantages of the Ascender 32 for his operations: "The Ascender 32 is a well built, easy-to-use, cost effective way to do routing, scaling, PIPs, layers, keying, and just about anything you could need for a moderate size show. It is my go-to switcher for events, as I know it will be able to handle the planned and unplanned elements of a show."