From a minivan, it is possible to get a movable TV stage for live travelling interviews. As it was the star of the latest Cannes Festival, the Limousine has been interesting hertz channels and TV-Web.
The idea is simple when you think of it, but it has to occur to you first ! You take a good-sized minivan, inside you set up cameras, production equipment, an efficient transmitting and receiving link, and then you get a luxury movable TV stage. Hubert and Stéphane Piernet, from Mediasynthese, a company of the CICA, in Sophia Antipolis, perfected the concept with the support of Citroën and of the 'Film du soleil' in Marseille. The result was the creation of the TV-Web Limousine that was presented for the first time at the occasion of the Cannes Festival, where it was used for some stars' interviews (see the presentation on the site www.tv-weblimousine.com).
Therefore, the Citroën minivan and its four cameras allow to realise interviews with travelling all along the route, and programmes that can be live broadcast either on usual hertz channels or on Web-TV. As the receiver is highly set up, in poor-bumpy areas, the Limousine can go away from distances of 30 to 100 km, while it goes on broadcasting. For the Festival, the receiver was set up on the Majestic roof and the programmes were made close to the Croisette.
The concept of a TV stage integrated in a car widely interested the TV channels that saw it working in Cannes. Presented with CICOM organization in the Awards Euroleaders for innovation, during the 9th EBN (European Network Business) European Conference, that took place between June 1st and 3rd , 2000, the Limousine got the special prize of the jury. Mediasynthese is also looking for capitalizing on the first successes, by gathering a round of table that would allow it to develop the concept and to start the manufacture with its partners (car manufacturers, computer companies, and TV channels).
The TV channels are multiplying and the Web-TV are coming up. All these TVs also need, more and more, fast means of intervention on the ground. Technologies can solve the problem, Stéphane Piernet says. As for Mediasynthese, launched in March 1998, thanks to the TV-Web Limousine, it finds a 'product' that perfectly fits its initial ambition : to ensure the convergence between television and new technologies of communication, including the Web…