32 TVBEurope The Workflow Rai at the ready with HD
Mike Clark reports on the launch of Rai’s first full-HD studio and the equipment set-up at the Italian public broadcaster’s Via Teulada production centre in Rome
RAI HASbegun an extensive series of technical upgrades, as Ubaldo Toni, head of TV Production Engineering with the Italian state broadcaster, explains. “These include TG2 (Channel 2’s news department), for which four million euros have been allocated, in addition to the Avid integrated newsroom system, for which funds had already been earmarked, and which should be operational in the early months of 2013.” The next step (with an
investment of slightly less than four million euros) concerns the broadcaster’s thematic channels (Rai 4, Rai Movie, Rai History, etc.), which will switch over to entirely tapeless HD production. There is also a call for tenders for the digitalisation of the Rai’s (18) regional studios and other high-profile projects will follow. The first stage in this ongoing
upgrade was the recent launch of Rai’s first full-HD studio in the broadcaster’s Via Teulada production centre in Rome. The show that inaugurated the studio was La Vita in Diretta (Life Live), a popular daily afternoon talk and news show hosted by Mara Venier and Marco Liorni. Broadcast Audio Technician Gianluca D’Ario mans a Stagetech Aurus console and explains, “To be precise, rather than transmitting in 5.1, we generate a 5.1 signal via TC Electronic UnWrap, which we then encode in Dolby E, to be fed to the routing set-up — where the stream is processed for transmission. For Dolby encoding we use a Dolby E Encoder DP 571, DP 57 Multichannel Audio Tool 0 and a DP 563 for Surround, whereas for decoding we used a DP 572.” Regarding the Soundcraft Vi6 (with 4.0 software) console used to mix in-studio sound, Studio Sound Engineer Emanuele Minghetti observes, “The desk’s main functions are easy to use, very intuitive and comprehensive, including the section for channel resizing and assignment on the work surface, and the masters. The Vistonics ‘knobs on screen’ channel strip interface for control of the auxes and dynamic processors make it also a fast practical desk.”
The show that inaugurated the new studio was La Vita in Diretta(Life Live), a daily afternoon talk and news show hosted by Mara Venier and Marco Liorni
Virtual patching The channels available on the local and remote stage boxes can in fact be routed anywhere thanks to the virtual input/output virtual patching, speeding up the distribution of resources and the creation of the initial project for each job. The patch bay and tie lines are complete with GPIO control. Minghetti continues, “The monitor and talkback section is really comprehensive, with delay