GEO FOCUS UK >>> BROADCAST FACILITY


BT Sport Launches Three Channels Out Of New Olympic Park Studios


Late last year, BT Sport announced that it would be taking over part of what was the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) used for the host broadcast and international TV coverage of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. On 1 August, three channels were launched from the freshly finished studios and production areas - BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2, and ESPN. The focal point of the facility is the 14,000sqft space that houses Studio 1 and Studio 2, which BT claims is the biggest L-shaped studio in the world (the space has aptly been described as being able to accommodate four and a half tennis courts).


Jamie Hindhaugh, COO of BT


Sport, commented that the space presented an opportunity that “no other facility in the country could offer” due to its incredible space and height, as well as the “phenomenal connectivity” within the space leftover from its previous tenants. Visually, the new BT Sport studios


are incredibly striking with Studio 1 featuring a glass floor that can be illuminated by LED lights to represent the pitch markings for a number of sports including football, rugby, and tennis. On the audio side, Calrec 40-fader Artmeis Light desks have been installed in the control


galleries of all three studios, which are linked to an Artmeis Beam rack as a routing core to create a Hydra2 network.


The most impressive feature of the


new space, however, is the broadcaster’s decision to forego the traditional ‘four-wall’ presentation space and create an open area that can be used and explored by presenters. To make this idea a reality, 16 RF


aerial arrays have been installed throughout the centre, which, according to Dan McDonnell – Managing Director of Timeline Television, which managed the design and build of the facilities –


allows them to “send a radio camera with a radio mic up to a dressing room or office and walk through the facility without the RF signal being disturbed”. The system is based on 16


Wisycom MRK960 dual true diversity receivers, which give 32 channels of wireless, 24 MTP40 beltpacks with DPA 460 microphones, and eight MTH400 handhelds. As for monitoring, Timeline went with Wisycom’s new MTK952 in-ears and installed four mono/stereo transmitters as well as 24 MPR30 receivers, all supplied by Wisycom’s UK distributor Raycom. www.btsport.com


>>> EVENT AES 52 Takes On Sound Field Control


The Audio Engineering Society’s 52nd international conference was held on 2-4 September at the University of Surrey with a focus on sound field control. Recent developments in this area of research have enabled engineers to tailor sound fields for specific applications by using sophisticated signal processing and reproduction tools. Keynote speakers included Professor Stephen Elliott of the University of Southampton who spoke about attenuating unwanted noise by using controllable secondary sources of sound to generate a sound field that destructively interferes with the sound field from the original, primary noise source – a technique that is widely used to reduce noise in headphones, aircraft, and cars. Professor Armin Kohlrausch of Philips Group Innovation and the Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, discussed how the requirement for perceptual models has grown


www.audiomedia.com


along with the development of more advanced methods of sound field creation, giving an overview of recent developments in the modeling of spatial hearing. On the last day, the BBC’s Head of Audio


Research, Dr Frank Melchior, spoke about the creative uses of sound field control and how, from a content provider’s perspective, researching and testing in uncontrolled and domestic environments is a necessary and important step. The Conference also included workshops on the


interplay between engineering and perception in the design of sound systems for listeners, and emerging techniques, applications, and opportunities for sound field control as well as a session by sponsor Yamaha Commercial Audio, who gave an introduction to the Yamaha AFC3 third generation acoustic field control system. The University of Surrey was the ideal location for the conference as the facility’s own department


of electronic engineering recently launched a research project to investigate Perceptually Optimised Sound Zones (POSZ) that involved the construction of a near-360º structure housing 64 Genelec 8020B monitors, which was designed to help develop methods to radiate sound so that audio is concentrated in dedicated zones with minimal spill. www.aes.org


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