Know-how

Exciting or visionary – hitherto, not terms instantly associated with central control room technology. tpc’s new central control room concept changes all that with futuristic thinking

Working in a TV broadcaster’s central control room can be a complicated business. For each event, for example the transmission of a Basel versus Bern football match, a variety of connections must be made. The video, audio, and intercom signals between the various studios and external locations arrive in different formats via different types of routing system and each must be individually routed. Actually, why? Everything would be much simpler using an event-oriented control system where the standard routing configuration scenarios are preprogrammed. All the routing for the Basel stadium football match can then be accomplished by a single key stroke.

Remote-controlled

These pre-defined routing groups are called ‘Signal Bundles’. In Swiss tv productioncenter zurich’s new Central Control Room (CCR) they are controlled by the innovative event-oriented management system. The NEXUS system is the core component of the new installation, alongside a video router. Apart from the production and broadcast audio signals NEXUS also switches all the communications signals. Both streams are remote-controlled by the management system, and thus operational simplicity is maintained even in the most complex routing configurations. In addition to pure switching operations, level and delay adjustments can also be applied via the central control system.

Communicative

NEXUS users can enjoy the advantages of many more smart functions. For example, all sources routed to an intercom path will be muted while an intercom microphone is active on the path. NEXUS also sums multiple intercom signals to a single bus to create a mono mix. These functions are all carried out on the NEXUS XDSP boards. Some of the DSPs are also used for return signals. This way, the CCR can route any audio or intercom signal from the studios and can process these signals with a variety of functions. This simultaneously provides powerful automation and a great deal of flexibility.

Centralized and Distributed

tpc’s control rooms and bigger OB Trucks have been using NEXUS systems, mostly in combination with CANTUS consoles, for some considerable time. These Base Devices are used as local signal routers. Obviously it makes sense to attach the local NEXUS components to the central NEXUS in the CCR. To prevent any mutual interference between systems, the central NEXUS was extended with a new Base Device into each of the control rooms. These CCR satellites were then connected to local devices via MADI. This allows the line from the Central Control Room up to the studio to be monitored. And that’s not all: The local Base Device also receives signals from the central video router, namely SDI with embedded audio. Up to 16 audio channels embedded into an SDI signal are resolved by NEXUS and can then be edited and re-embedded into the SDI stream, regardless of whether or not the stream contains images. With SDI connections, tpc has found an elegant solution to the problem of supplying the audio control rooms with video.

Whiz-kid

Using this bundle of functions, the NEXUS completely supercedes the previous talkback matrix and the 4-wire matrix. It routes local signals, complex wide signals and links to external audio systems. It also acts as audio processor for level, delay compensation, summing and conference summing. NEXUS enables audio and intercom signals to be monitored and metered at any point in the path. Moreover, NEXUS’ extensive controllability makes event-oriented bundle switching possible. Coupled with the outstanding reliability of NEXUS systems, which tpc had already experienced with their numerous previous installations, the purchasing decision was easy. With this, tpc’s great vision for the future has now come to pass.