As part of its Creative Cloud 2014 event, a collective update of its entire line up of desktop and mobile apps for creative professionals, Adobe staged Adobe Connect Now, which debuted the 4K video capabilities of its Premiere editing software platform. WorldStage provided extensive 4K video and engineering support for the headline-making gathering at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
Adobe Connect Now is the latest in a series of Adobe events in which WorldStage has played a key role, including multiple AdobeMAX events and Digital Marketing Summits. PIX PRODUCTIONS, the producer for this event as well as past Adobe events, brought in WorldStage to handle the complex and exacting video display requirements of the show.
“This was the first 4k signal and work flow requirement for an Adobe event and we were delighted that our client PIX PRODUCTIONS called on us for support,” says WorldStage project manager Jack Dussault.
“With industry buzz centered on new, ‘cutting-edge’ 4K video applications, Adobe wanted to do demonstrations with a live audience, as well as have a web-streaming presence,” he explains. “The challenge for us was how to display 4K video, software, video switching and manipulation between several 4K sources for a live audience in a rather intimate theater setting of about 300 people while simultaneously streaming the live feed to an expected online audience of over 60,000.”
Dussault notes that WorldStage has done a lot of 4K – and larger – work in the past with projections up to 20K spanning a city block. “Almost all of our display applications exceed 2k or 4k resolutions,” he says. “But these are typically sourced from multiple HD outputs. Getting 4K out of single source is still relatively unusual.”
For Adobe Connect Now WorldStage “manipulated the four 1920×1080 quadrants of a native 4K signal and switched them via Vista Systems’ Spyder to a true Christie 4K projector,” he says. “Our engineers carefully planned and tested the signal path in our our California office before the event to reassure everyone that the system could manage this much information and behave as planned.”
Christie CP4230 34,000-lumen 4K DLP Digital Cinema Projectors with quad HD-SDI input card were used for the event. New Apple Mac Pro towers provided the 4k source material that was processed through the Vista X20 Spyder system.
The display was a 50-foot screen on stage at Alice Tully Hall where video clips and graphics would showcase how Premiere editing software easily masters 4K content. “One sequence with a snowy owl looked more 3D than 3D,” says Dussault. “The images were stunning, sharp, crisp and life-like.”
WorldStage is known for being in the forefront of emerging technologies, and 4K video is no exception. “3D projection, Pepper’s Ghost applications, wide-screen architectural mapping projections – we take on the cutting edge – and 4k source material will only push us further,” says Dussault.
For Adobe Connect Now, Jeremy Nichols was executive producer, Jamie Cherry was the producer, Jaki Johnsen production designer, John Bettini technical director, Shaun Boyle technical producer, Mark Jepsen camera director, Amy Richards live stage manager, and Lucas Hartog demo technical director.
At WorldStage, Richard Bevan was the account executive; Geof Gibson and Gary Kajikawa were in engineering development; Shane Zinke, Geof Gibson, Oleg Burmenko, Roger Gruchalski and Jeff Gottesfeld were live video engineers; and Paul Bevin, Luis Lojo and Erin Crane live audio engineers.
WorldStage Inc., the company created by the merger of Scharff Weisberg Inc and Video Applications Inc, continues a thirty-year legacy of providing clients the widest variety of entertainment technology coupled with conscientious and imaginative engineering services. WorldStage provides audio, video and lighting equipment and services to the event, theatrical, broadcast and brand experience markets nationally and internationally.
For more information on PIX PRODUCTIONS, visit
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