A scalable, modular Blackmagic Design setup is delivering media to 380sqm of LG’s LED walls, while simultaneously routing signals for broadcast, at the Starlite Festival, which is featuring more than 60 live summer concerts over three months in the quarry of Nagüeles, Marbella, Spain.
The stage for the festival, which runs until August 31, is surrounded by 60m-high rock walls and cars need to be parked a mile away, while minibuses shuttle guests up and down the hill. The festival includes music, fashion, art, film and gastronomy.
For Marcelo Savio, technical director at Starlite Films, and integrator Mas Que Video, the challenge was to deliver multicam 4K coverage and playback from a compact, reliable AV infrastructure.
The entire system drives the LED displays throughout the festival grounds, including a main screen (18 x 10m), two side screens (10 by 5.5m each) in the main auditorium, and more than 100m of linear LED displays around the lounge area, including the VIP zone. The main LED displays are LG 55in 55UR81 models.
A multicamera package featuring seven URSA Broadcast G2 cameras is equipped with lenses ranging from 12x to 40x zoom. Five of these cameras are on pedestals: two in the front-of-house position, one on a track near the stage for dynamic shots, and two more placed in the audience and on stage to capture unique angles.
Two Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2 cameras are installed among the instruments on stage to capture intimate details and close up angles. The team has also mounted a Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2 on a cablecam system, providing cinematic aerial shots across the venue.
Each fixed position camera in the quarry runs over more than 200m of SMPTE fibre back to the control room. There, eight Blackmagic Studio Fiber Converters handle bidirectional 12G-SDI transmission, remote camera control, tally, intercom, and power through a single cable.
At the heart of the main control room is an ATEM Constellation 8K live production switcher, paired with an ATEM 2 M/E Advanced Panel 30 and installed in the technical area beneath the stage.
Savio commented: “The system had to be robust, scalable, and low latency to adapt to the technical demands and the innovative format of each show.”
He added: “The quarry’s mountain setting is a big part of the festival’s atmosphere. It would be a missed opportunity not to showcase it. We usually operate the cablecam during golden hour to capture the best light.”
Starlite has established a fully redundant backup control room in a separate part of the venue, ready to take over as backup in the event of a failure. Recording and playback are handled by six rack mounted HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro broadcast decks, used for ISO and programme recording (PGM) in ProRes to SSDs, with automated backup to local servers.
A dedicated seventh HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro handles play out of graphics, videos, text, and teleprompter scripts during the show.
Savio added: “All media assets are prepared in advance on Mac workstations and uploaded to a 20TB Blackmagic Cloud Store. The HyperDecks access this shared storage over 10G Ethernet, delivering real-time playback for LED walls and on-stage visuals.”
Video signal routing across the festival is handled by a Blackmagic Videohub 40×40 12G router, connected directly to the main control room. From there, signals are distributed via fibre to different areas across the venue, where local scalers and Micro Converter BiDirectional SDI/HDMI 12G units handle format and resolution conversion. For redundancy, a Blackmagic Videohub 20×20 12G unit is installed in the backup control room.
To ensure reliability across the entire system, Starlite’s infrastructure combines fibre optics, SDI and segmented IP networks. The IP layer enables the remote control of switchers, routers and HyperDecks via ATEM Software Control, Videohub Control and HyperDeck Ethernet Protocols, with full redundancy built in. Each flight case is also fitted with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for stable power and protection against voltage spikes.
Universo Starlite, a 25-minute weekly TV programme from each night’s recordings airs on Antena 3 Internacional and is distributed in over 100 countries, including the United States and Latin America.
