Dome Productions, already a North American leader in mobile production and transmission services, has further solidified itself as the go-to company for High Definition broadcasting in Canada with Spirit, its fourth HD mobile in as many years.

Consisting of a 53-foot trailer with 41-foot expando, Spirit runs without a B unit. This, according to Mike Johnson, Dome’s Director of Engineering, makes it an ideal truck for broadcasting in venues with existing cabling.

Indeed, since its launch in late September, 2007, Spirit has done just that, covering a variety of sporting events at major venues. Its first show was a Toronto Blue Jays home series at the Rogers Centre; it has since been used for CFL football, boxing, NCAA basketball and Major League Soccer games for clients such as TSN, Rogers Sportsnet and ESPN. For much of the 2007-2008 season it has been the primary mobile for RDS NHL games in Montreal, as well as working in Ottawa and parts of the eastern United States.

In January of 2008, Spirit was one of three Dome mobiles covering the Red Bull Crashed Ice Xtreme Sport competition, an enormous undertaking involving 23 cameras, five jib arms and more than 60 crew members.

Spirit is similar in layout and hardware to Dome’s other HD trailers, but features one significant equipment change: nine Sony HDC-1500 cameras that can fun in a fibre configuration or a combination of triax/fibre.  

This change demonstrates Dome’s ability to embrace the industry’s move to fibre technology. It marks a significant step in increasing the multi-format capability of Dome’s fleet, according to Johnson.