Beijing, China, October 2019: In Beijing at the beginning of October, during the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, the largest NEXUS network of the Berlin-based manufacturer STAGETEC to date was in use: 58 base devices, 12 STAR routers, and 12 mixing consoles. These were used to broadcast a parade, a pageant, and a large gala event by CCTV nationwide. CGTN Global Television Network (formerly CCTV International) handled the worldwide distribution.
"CCTV has been one of the biggest customers of STAGETEC audio mixing consoles and NEXUS networks since 2007 and is very satisfied with their reliability and redundancy capabilities, which is especially important for live broadcasts," said Zeng Dong, general manager of Stagetec Media Technology. "The audio quality and features of the mixing consoles are also convincing. And the possibilities offered by NEXUS in terms of network size and format conversion were clearly demonstrated by China's 70th anniversary celebrations." For sound reinforcement and recording, a huge NEXUS network was installed with three routers and 33 Base Devices as signal distributors. The sounds of the diverse programs were picked up via 592 TrueMatch microphone inputs.
Broadcasting major events requires powerful equipment, and so the 12 consoles and I/O systems distributed across four OB vans and four sound studios were suitably well-equipped. Two UHD and one HD OB vans from CCTV were each equipped with two consoles: a 48-fader AURUS and a 12-fader ON AIR flex. The fourth OB van belonged to Beijing's Communication University of China, which had a 32-fader CRESCENDO console installed. The OB trucks were also equipped with large NEXUS I/O systems. Thus, 224 microphone inputs were available in both UHD OB vans, and up to 704 AES67 streams were sent. In all four OB vans, individual program sections of the all-day events were mixed, recorded, and forwarded to studios.
Further signal processing and broadcasting of the events took place in four sound studios of CCTV, where mixing consoles and NEXUS networks from STAGETEC were also installed. Two 56-fader AURUS transmitted the evening gala event from one recording studio. In a second studio, a 40-fader AURUS mixed different parts of the program, which were then streamed. In the third studio, a CRESCENDO with 56 faders mixed and recorded the daytime events, which were then broadcast throughout China. Mixing and recording of selected program parts for international distribution was handled by a 40-fader CRESCENDO in the fourth recording studio.