1730 guitarists and NEXO GEO D system set a world record

Shillong's musical reputation is now firmly in the record books after it hosted a massive outdoor concert at which more than 1700 guitarists joined together to play Bob Dylan's classic ‘Knocking on Heaven's Door'. Delta Sound brought its newly-acquired NEXO GEO D series tangent-array system for the concert, needing to fly just 6 cabinets a side to handle the main audience (delay towers located 75 metres back from the stage took up the rest of the crowd.)

Controlled by a NEXO NX242 digital processor with additional ES4 card to provide EtherSound functionality, the system was powered by CAMCO Vortex 6 amplifiers, with bass from ten CD 18" subs. The show was mixed out front on an Allen & Heath GL4800, with monitor mixes going through a Soundcraft desk.

NEXO's Indian distributor Sun Infonet supplied the GEO D10 cabinets and processor to Delta Sound, The SPL from the D10s carried comfortably to 75 meters from the stage, which is where delay towers for the back of the stadium were erected.

YTN News, Korea's leading news channel broadcasts live elections using WASP3D graphics solution

WASP3D, the leading real-time 3D graphics solution, is being used by YTN News, the leading 24 hours Korean news channel for exclusive coverage, analysis and presentation of 19^th Korean presidential elections 2007. The project is being jointly executed with Synergy Korea, WASP3D's partner in Korea.

YTN News team developed the complete election package application using the easy to use SDK (software developers kit) provided with the WASP3D solution. The SDK allows OEM developers to customize the solution as per their requirements and yet use all the powerful Real-time 3D features offered by WASP3D. 

T K Lee, Managing Director at Synergy Korea commented, "YTN was looking for a solution that generates high quality 3D broadcast graphics real-time, is easy to use and yet is cost-effective; WASP3D equipped with rich features and robust tools made it a perfect fit."

Ankur Gupta, Regional Business Manager - WASP3D, South America & Asia Pacific, said, "It is an important project for us and we have deployed the best of our resources to ensure smooth running of polling results; successful completion of this assignment would surely help us expand our presence in the Korean broadcasting space."

WASP3D Real-time 3D Graphics solution enables live display of analytical graphics using bars, pie charts, lower thirds, and tickers, while integrating with multiple data sources WASP3D team has rich experience and solid expertise in election and live event coverage having completed successful projects with Sahara TV Network, Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation, Kuwait elections and Turkey presidential elections among others.

Dolby E users benefit from Crystal Vision's HD embedder/de-embedder upgrade

Crystal Vision has added new features to its high definition audio embedder/de-embedder to benefit Dolby E users. The original TANDEM HD-20 has evolved into TANDEM HD-21, and now gives the engineer the option to delay the video by a frame to compensate for the delay created by converting to or from Dolby E.

Dolby E allows multi-channel audio to be compressed into a single AES digital audio stream. This compression process, however, delays the audio by one video frame. By incorporating the option of a one frame video delay within the new TANDEM HD-21, therefore, the video and audio timing can be brought back into alignment at points where it matters (such as when switching signals or approaching a mixer) and thus maintain the relative audio-video timing and avoid lip-sync errors. An adjustable audio delay of up to 60ms - originally found in TANDEM HD-20 - can be selected for individual audio channels, allowing further flexibility when dealing with a mixture of Dolby E and standard audio.

By incorporating so many functions on a single board, TANDEM HD-21 saves Dolby E users both rack space and money, removing the previous requirement for a separate HD video delay or synchronizer to create this one frame of video delay.

TANDEM HD-21 retains all the excellent features of the TANDEM HD-20. Equally applicable to straightforward or more sophisticated applications and to both Dolby E and non-Dolby E users, it provides flexible embedding or de-embedding for one or two groups of analogue or digital audio, and is configured using piggybacks. Full channel shuffling allows the engineer to rearrange the audio tracks between the two groups, while audio replace means an input piggyback can be used to overwrite some of the original audio channels from the video feed. Further features include stereo to mono conversion and individual gain control. In addition to the new video delay feature, TANDEM HD-21's extensive Dolby E handling includes the ability to embed and de-embed Dolby E, mix AES and Dolby E in a single group and overwrite the Dolby E of a single group.

Movico Technologies India announces India's first digital asset management/production management system for television and film producers

Movico Technologies Private Limited has announced India's first digital asset management/production management system for television and film producers. The Movico system, code-named MediaBaron is designed to meet the needs of the ever increasing number of content producers and television channels.  It integrates all the elements of production and provides a single-point control over the entire process.  MediaBaron consists of several modules for various stages of production, with information of each stage available to the others on a single, consistent user-interface.

‘Content owners are not being able to monetize their valuable assets effectively primarily due to the challenges with asset management and content discoverability', said Mr. Arvind Jha, Director and co-founder Movico Technologies.  Movico is investing more than USD 1 million to create a sophisticated, tightly integrated, multi-purpose video production, storage and broadcast management system capable of handling enterprise class loads, he said.

Mr. S. N. Rai, Director and co-founder added, ‘MediaBaron allows unmanaged video assets to be utilized for re-purposing or leveraging for the new media and new audiences constantly emerging in the world today.  MediaBaron is designed to alleviate the cost burden faced by the industry and requires low investment as it is hardware independent.

Speaking on the industry challenges, Ms. V.N. Saroja, Director and co-founder, said, ‘The business of digital video management is currently pegged at USD 70 million and is estimated to grow to USD 300 million by 2013.  The industry is currently challenged with high-cost hardware based solutions that require investment in hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is why, most producers end up putting off the purchase of a good digital asset management solution that can track and maximize the potential of their video assets.

RFS drives India's FM development

Radio Frequency Systems, has continued its leading role in India's fast-track FM radio development program by winning the final portion of the project's stage two development. Appointed by the project's Delhi-based consultant, Broadcast Engineering Consultant India Ltd (BECIL), RFS will provide total turnkey RF solutions for two major cities - Hyderabad and Jaipur -as well as RF broadcast components for four other sites.  

Since playing a pivotal role in stage one of the Common Transmission Infrastructure (CTI) project, RFS has gone on to design and supply 37 fully engineered FM RF broadcast systems as part of stage two of the upgrade. ‘This most recent project award positions RFS as one of the most significant contributors to the CTI project - RFS has supplied RF solutions to nearly half of the completed CTI broadcast sites,' said RFS Systems Engineering and Area Product Manager, Broadcast Antenna Systems and HF, Hans-Peter Quade. ‘RFS's extensive global experience in providing broadband RF solutions meant that we were able to tailor each installation to the local broadcast environment.' 

The solution determined by RFS for each site was based on two essential components: an RFS 904-series broadband FM panel array mounted atop an existing tower structure, coupled with an RFS CZ-series multi-channel balanced combiner to provide a combined signal from all broadcasters to the broadband array.  RFS HELIFLEX flexible air-dielectric coaxial feeder cables formed the link between the combiner and the FM array. Scheduled for completion by the end of 2008, the three-stage CTI project incorporates numerous shared FM radio broadcast infrastructure, supporting 240 radio stations in 86 Indian cities. With stage two of the CTI project nearing completion, 168 stations are now online and broadcast into 56 cities, representing a significant milestone in India's ongoing broadcast network expansion.