Sea Patrol TV Series

TDC provided a projection system for accurately simulating ocean panoramas as seen from the bridge of the HMAS Hammersley, the Australian naval patrol boat on which the Sea Patrol series is set for the second year in a row.

The studio set consisted of a full scale interior build of the HMAS Hammersley’s bridge mounted on a large turntable. The turntable facilitated the rotation of the set against a backdrop of port, starboard and bow facing video panoramas running on a rear projection screen. This allowed shots to be captured from any angle on the bridge.

The projection system featured a 22m wide by 6m high Stewart Filmscreen Aeroview 100 rear projection surface mounted on custom rigging based on an arc radius of 22m to provide a gentle curve to the screen. The Aeroview 100 is a zero gain screen, chosen to minimise hot spotting of the projectors and for its excellent light transmission characteristics.

Six Barco FLM R20+ projectors were used in a configuration of three stacks of two for increased luminous output. The set of projectors, rated at 20,000 ANSI lumens each, were converged and edge-blended to provide one continuous 3.67:1 aspect widescreen image.

A by-product of projecting onto a curved surface is the geometric distortion of the projected image. To combat this, six Folsom ScreenShaper warping processors were used (one for each projector).

Tying all the inputs and outputs together was a Vista Systems Spyder 380 and 326 linked together to allow for up to 10 inputs and 6 outputs directly to and from the switcher without any additional routers. The Spyder system provided all the blending, windowing and scaling to generate the 3800 x 1050 pixel panoramas.