As engineers experienced in designing today’s broadcast facilities, we are careful to coordinate every detail of design as it relates to the architecture of sports and entertainment facilities. Every aspect is analyzed to ensure the fan experience is optimized. It’s important because there are thousands of screaming fans in your stadium, but there are also millions of passionate fans watching on television. We take extreme care when designing the physical space. 

Likewise, broadcast designers have a critical role in maximizing the viewing experience for those around the world. It’s also important to design a facility with the onsite broadcast needs in mind. Backed by our experience at large-scale venues, we share three common mistakes that can be avoided with thoughtful engagement by your broadcast design professionals.

Failure to Verify Cabling Runs

Have all the critical termination locations in your facility been determined? Has your broadcast designer considered the conduit pathways between all of these locations? If they haven’t, then you may end up with inadequate camera support or communication challenges for the TV production crew. Review of these cabling runs will also help eliminate unnecessary cabling or incorrect cable types – saving your client significant amounts of money and eliminating huge headaches for production crews when it’s time to go live!

Broadcast design professionals should properly specify their pre-wire and backbone cabling systems. If not, your stadium crews could be forced to run unsightly bundles along the floor, over the roof, or through occupied spaces for each event. Getting this right is vital.

Technology is adapting. Ask your broadcast professionals if the cabling specified is going to provide proper infrastructure — not only on opening day — but for the future technology that’s on its way.

Incorrect Camera Locations

An experienced broadcast designer will know the rules of camera placement by heart and follows the industry guidelines closely when laying out a facility. Failure to adhere to these rules could prevent the broadcast crew from capturing that game-changing moment or key replay angle. Here are some examples:

• For a soccer broadcast, the camera place to capture penalty box area footage should be on the 18-20-yard line, not the 25-30-yard line. The camera on the 18-yard line produces a much closer, clear, in-depth look than the one on the 25-yard line, even if that camera on the 25 has a better zoom lens.

• Leagues require specific camera angle ranges. For concourse level cameras, the shot angle should fall between 19 and 25 degrees from the playing surface. For press box and high end zone locations, the shot angle should not exceed 35 degrees.

A broadcast designer well-versed in league rules and regulations is an architect’s best partner when it comes to early stadium and venue planning. Camera placement is a well-informed art and a crucial factor in quality TV production.

Prime Real Estate for Broadcast Control Rooms

When it comes to event venues, everyone wants the best seat in the house. The midfield seats, center field plaza, club, and suite level locations are not only the highest revenue generators but are also the best location for a broadcast booth. A common myth in the industry is that the broadcast production crew and control rooms also need to be positioned at the center field suite level.

Here’s the inside knowledge your experienced broadcast designer should bring to the table:

• While many leagues require that broadcast booths be at midcourt, midfield, or the 50-yard line suite level, these same requirements don’t exist for control rooms. Networks realize the premium associated with these suite locations and will often help with the costs associated with the design and construction of these booths.
• Natural sound is very important for the in-game broadcasters and they need to be in the middle of the action to bring authenticity to the broadcast. On the contrary, control rooms work best in isolation from natural audio, which makes a remote location more ideal.
• From a cable management standpoint, locating the broadcast control room as close as possible to the TV trucks and cross connection room will save installation costs.

You may get recommendations from some in-house venue engineers to place the control room alongside the broadcast booth. While we don’t argue it’s a scenic location to go to work every day, it’s not necessary. A quality broadcast designer will apply best practices by keeping the whole organization in mind.

Avoiding these three common mistakes in broadcast design will help you deliver a thoughtful installation for your venue clients and help provide an awesome viewing experience to the people that matter most — the fans.

Top photo: Bud Walton Arena control room, University of Arkansas Razorbacks in Fayetteville.

Michael Tran is a senior broadcast designer for Henderson Engineers with nearly 30 years of industry experience. He has worked in venues around the country served as both a design consultant and broadcast engineer for networks such as Fox Sports and the NFL Network.

Brent Felten is an associate and lead program/project manager for Henderson’s broadcast services team. He started his career in stadium and arena design nearly 15 years ago. Since then, he has covered a broad range of practices with a proven track record of growth across all market sectors.

For more information, visit Henderson Engineers. 

For the vast majority of broadcast engineers, the demands of new systems and future equipment are an ever growing issue. What’s not growing, in most environments, is the physical space within a broadcast control room. As a result, every RU of space is increasing in value like the housing market—because, ultimately, this is all about real estate.

On top of increased content processing and the growth of digital and OTT platforms, the broadcast control room also has a number of fixed and variable costs. For example, how do the costs of power, cooling and rent factor into housing so much equipment? It is also important to consider the cost of each RU in your environment. Some estimates find that each RU of space in a congested broadcast server room is valued at upwards of $3,000. It is important to note that this is not including the cost of equipment, so careful planning can have a long-term financial gain.

IP SHAPING FUTURE BROADCAST CONTROL ROOM IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

Most of us take our dependency on IP-based networks for granted. That statement holds up across personal and professional areas and within just about any vertical market.

Within the broadcast space, we are witnessing a shift in thinking. Companies across the industry are coming together to help take the serial digital interface (SDI) workflow into the IP realm. Work is well underway in defining standards to guide this shift and create a common ground that benefits everyone.

But with all the excitement around IP-based workflows, it is easy to overlook other areas of your control room infrastructure that can greatly benefit from an IP environment. One such area is your keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) architecture

While broadcast control rooms have long benefitted from KVM systems in place, there have been several limiting factors based on the implemented technology. For example, traditional KVM architecture requires a centralized switch that limits the number of computer ports and user ports. If your needs exceed the limit in one area or the other, you’re required to expand to additional switches or re-do your install to accommodate the growth. These traditional systems are also limited by distance—meaning, how far a server and user can be located from the switch.

IP-based KVM systems, on the other hand, allow control rooms to function far more efficiently by removing the limitations of distance and hardware location. Tying together multiple control rooms on different floors of a building, or even in different buildings across a campus location, is entirely possible with an IP KVM system. The number of users and computers is virtually limitless with an IP-based KVM, as the system can scale alongside the network. IP-based KVM is also brand agnostic when it comes to network switches, minimizing the learning curve and implementation time of a new system and equipment.

[2018 NAB Show's IP Showcase to Map Path to IP]

As IP-based KVM continues to grow in popularity, it is now following a trend often seen in the hardware market; smaller footprints and increased efficiency. The traditional KVM approach requires a large amount of space to house a chassis or, in many cases, multiple chassis. The ability to free up this space with an IP-based system is an immediate benefit. We are now seeing the emergence of Zero U, IP-based KVM transmitters to facilitate the value of the rack real estate. As IP-based KVM continues to evolve and shift to a smaller footprint, it also brings lower power consumption requirements and reduced heat dissipation. All of these factors help create a more efficient and economical broadcast control room.

WHAT”S YOUR RACKSPACE WORTH?

From live broadcast to post production, IP-based, high performance networks are decluttering control rooms and end-user environments, while enabling seamless content control from a single workstation. Utilizing IP for KVM matrixes helps to facilitate new levels of infrastructure cost savings and operational flexibility. Rack space is still limited and the cost of real estate will only rise.

Tim Conway is vice president at Adder Corp.