September 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


“Part of the brief was that journalists would be using it. There are no TV people here” —Paul Underwood


its first broadcast customer in the UK. “It has a great look. It comes over very clearly on cameras, and we can change the colour temperatures.” Underwood chose a custom


automation system for on-air lights and clock from IDS (www.ipe-products.co.uk), because its graphical user interface can also be used to control other broadcast equipment. “We got them to interact with the Prysm API to control which input/channel it was receiving,” which works well. “Certainly, for my next project, I’d sit down and think how I could use the IDS automation more extensively.” The BBC uses it at Broadcasting House and in Manchester for video walls and in-vision screens. “We could have done a lot more with it if we had time. It’s something I’d like to investigate further.” deltatre is now looking at installing the system in its own offices. The video wall was custom


built by AKA Design, who made all the furniture, including one of the largest edit desks in the country, with seven positions,


each using Final Cut Pro 7 running on Mac Pros wired into the 144x144 3G HD-SDI Miranda NV8144 router. A separate craft edit room, with one NLE, also acts as a voice over booth. The Sun already used FCP, but if Underwood was purchasing now he’d look to the cloud (deltatre has moved to FORscene for its internal editing). Besides Miranda, they also


looked at Evertz for routing, his


initial choice. However, he met Miranda at IBC “and was really impressed with some of the things they were doing with touch panels and control, but, in the end, it came down to price and I got a good deal.” The server room had little rack space, so everything had to be squeezed into three racks (although purely IT-related systems are also housed in News UK’s 3rd floor server room).


Sound decisions With studios in an open office, they were concerned about noise. But after Cedar Audio demonstrated its 8-channel DNS 8 Live Dialogue Noise Suppressor, which listens to the background noise and cancels it out, he says: “It did an amazing job of tuning it out.” The gallery is quite


Upon reflection: The main studio uses Reflec Media’s chromakey backdrops as a way to get better mattes with less light


traditional, but simpler to use. For audio, instead of the normal Yamaha desk, there is an Axia audio mixer/routing and talkback system of the type normally used by radio DJs, which is touch panel and IP- based, and “simple to use”.


One of the biggest debates


was over the vision mixer. They looked at NewTek’s TriCaster, Broadcast Pix and VidiGo (indeed he bought VidiGo’s Toolbox Pro for two-way comms with Skype or Google Hangouts), “but these studio-in- a-box systems are not flexible enough.” Instead they chose a For-A HVS-350HS switcher. He was concerned about users being daunted by the 2ME system, but any nervousness was overcome within a few weeks. “It does a fantastic job. It frame synchs all channels automatically. It’s a great product for the money, and very simple to use.”


TVBEurope 71 The Workflow


Tight fit: The Miranda router and other video equipment squeezed into the server room


The biggest challenge on the


project was the IP KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) controls. They initially bought a product that didn’t do what they wanted, and had to replace it with one that did (from Adder Technology), but was twice the price. “With KVM, don’t cut corners,” he advises. “You need to go with a digital solution [DVI-based]. Going with an analogue-based system doesn’t work.” As deltatre isn’t a dedicated systems integrator, it used Broadcast Networks for wiring and engineering support. www.deltatre.com


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