For the past two decades, the Miami HEAT have been firing up television screens across the country with their fancy footwork and agility on the stadium floor. Off the court, however, their television production crew has been mastering some pretty fancy moves of their own, due in no small part to the use of FFV’s Omega Deck DVR, according to Ted Ballard, Miami HEAT's television director.

"The release of the Omega Deck was a defining moment in television history because it changed the way we do television," Ballard says. "Today, it has become so accepted that people take it for granted. But six years ago, it was a major change that freed us up in so many ways to do the kind of show we wanted to do."

One of the first teams to acquire the Omega Deck, the HEAT production team uses it for key & fill in both home and away game broadcasts. The deck's hot-swappable drives give them the flexibility to incorporate different sets of graphics, depending on the show.

According to Ballard, the FFV Omega Deck enhances the HEAT's productions, making it easy to display the wide array of graphic animations that distinguish the team’s basketball broadcasts. "Our graphic artists can focus on their designs and not have to think about technical restrictions of the playback."

In the HEAT's setup, the Omega Deck is tied into the switcher through a Lance Disk Controller, and all animations are cued up in advance on a timeline for playout from the Omega Deck exactly when called for.

"To be able to go from city to city and pull off the complex graphics we need to enhance the visual display of our telecast, and to be doing it on the same piece of equipment for six years, is a phenomenal achievement — really quite a feat for a piece of broadcast gear. It speaks volumes about FFV as a company in terms of their standards for design quality, the durability of the product itself, and their commitment to their customers," Ballard says.