TNDV Founder Nic Dugger and his production colleagues at NATAS have successfully executed a live stream broadcast — and it just happened to be for the 74th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards.
The ceremony was presented April 16 by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences during the NAB Show in Las Vegas. The event recognized innovations and achievements in television technology and engineering from ARRI, Harmonic, MultiDyne and NEC, among other visionary organizations.
Dugger and his production colleagues produced and delivered the live stream from a state-of-the art LED Volume virtual studio at the Vû Las Vegas. The Vû’s LED Volume virtual studio allowed real-time rendered, full-motion imagery to splash onto curved LED panels that engulf the physical set.
“The use of the LED Volume studio on this awards show produced a visually captivating and immersive virtual set experience for our honorees, guests, and audience,” Dugger said. “For a show based around technology and ingenuity, it was fitting to be in a facility that allowed attendees and viewers alike to feel like they were immersed in a cutting-edge environment.”
This year’s event marks the second time Dugger has been in the director’s chair. He and his crew worked closely with Delroy Binger, Head of IT Services for NATAS, who oversaw distribution of the live stream to global audiences. Binger and Dugger worked together on three Emmy Award show productions since NAB Show 2022, including the Daytime Emmy Awards live broadcast in June, and two exclusively live-streamed productions: The News and Documentary Emmy Awards in October, and the Children and Family Emmy Awards, held for the first time in December.
Dugger also worked closely with Head of NATAS Production & Events Lisa Armstrong. Dugger and Armstrong have worked together on previous Emmy Awards shows when Dugger served as technical producer, including the virtual versions of the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and Sports Emmy Awards that were streamed live from Nashville during the pandemic.
Each year, a committee of highly qualified television engineers considers technical developments in the industry to determine which, if any, merit an award. This year’s ceremony honored 2022 winners, including MultiDyne and ARRI for their development of a digital cinema camera-mounted video extender for live audiences; Harmonic, Comcast, and Intel for pioneering the development and deployment of a virtualized cable modem; WSC, IBM, Comcast, and Google for AI-ML curation of sports highlights, and Nobukazu Teranishi and NEC for the invention and development of the pinned photodiode now used in most image sensors.
“It was an honor to be part of this awards show, which celebrates the who’s who of broadcast engineering,” Dugger said. “To recognize these industry leaders was truly a chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with my heroes, and the opportunity to use the Vû;s LED virtual studio, which is similar to the one used to create the photorealistic desert scenes for the TV series ‘The Mandalorian’, provided us with the kind of breakthrough technology that the ‘Technical Emmys’ stand for. Now that both the crew and the audience have experienced what this show can be outside of a traditional hotel ballroom, it would be hard to go back. I hope we can continue to produce this event in such a unique environment for many years to come.”
— Reporting by Brian Galante
