SIEGAN, Germany—Guntermann & Drunck (G&D) and Netgear AV have announced a new solution that simplifies deployment of professional KVM-over-IP systems by removing one of the most time-consuming steps in the process: manual network configuration.

Through the G&D KVM-Over-IP Plugin for the Netgear AV ecosystem, integrators and KVM administrators can apply a dedicated KVM-over-IP profile directly to ports or sections of Netgear AV Line infrastructure. In a single step, the plugin automatically activates key network parameters such as VLAN configuration, IGMP Snooping Querier, QoS, and other required settings for G&D KVM-over-IP deployments.

The result is a faster, more consistent and more reliable setup process, the companies said. Planners benefit from greater configuration certainty from the outset. Integrators reduce repetitive manual work at the switch level and minimize the risk of inconsistencies across installations. KVM administrators can provision expand, and maintain infrastructure with significantly less effort, G&D and Netgear said.

This is especially important in broadcast, Pro AV, and mission-critical control room environments, where device categories, switch types, and bandwidth classes must operate reliably within a shared IP infrastructure. By turning complex network configuration into a structured and repeatable process, the joint solution helps teams deploy scalable KVM-over-IP environments with greater confidence, the companies said.

“The partnership with G&D was a logical step for us, as we share a common understanding of the requirements of modern, mission-critical IP workflows,” said Laurent Masia, senior director of product line management at Netgear AV. “By combining G&D’s proven KVM expertise with Netgear AV’s networking technology, we are creating powerful, scalable, and easy-to-deploy solutions for control rooms, broadcast environments, and other professional applications. Together, we are helping our customers make the transition to KVM-over-IP efficiently, reliably, and with a future-proof approach.”

G&D contributes its longstanding KVM expertise to the collaboration, including advanced security features, high video quality through bluedec, ultra-low-latency transmission, and workflow-optimizing capabilities such as FreeSeating and CrossDisplay-Switching. Resilience concepts such as DirectRedundancyShield further support reliable operation in demanding professional environments.

Netgear AV provides the network infrastructure for these workflows, with AV-optimized switches, high-performance networking, PoE++ support, redundancy options, and centralized configuration through an intuitive user interface. The ability to combine different switch types and bandwidth classes within a single environment also gives customers greater flexibility when designing scalable IP-based infrastructures.

“In contrast to DirectKVM, with KVM-over-IP we hand over the core of KVM distribution – in other words, the central part of signal distribution – to the network infrastructure,” said Andreas Gerlach, executive vice president of innovation at G&D and VuWall. “If the network does not function correctly or is configured incorrectly, the KVM data cannot perform with the level of quality users expect from G&D. This makes us all the more pleased to be working with a partner like Netgear AV, which has specifically optimized its expertise and versatile networking hardware for G&D’s KVM-over-IP projects.”

More information is available at www.gdsys.com.

ROME—Following a competitive public tender process, Rai (Radiotelevisione Italiana), the national public broadcasting company of Italy, has awarded Imagine Communications a three-year frame contract to support its transition from SDI to IP.

The agreement, which was done through local systems integrator Allyn Srl, positions Imagine’s Selenio Network Processor (SNP) as a core building block in Rai’s migration to SMPTE ST 2110 across its master control rooms (MCRs) and production control rooms (PCRs).

“Our move to IP is a long-term transformation, and we need a platform that will let us migrate at our own pace without disrupting operations,” said Stefano Marchetti, head of playout and network engineering at Rai. “Imagine’s SNP provides a practical foundation for how we want to build and manage our IP environments going forward — one that enables incremental deployment, operational continuity, and long-term scalability.”

As part of its modernization strategy, Rai is migrating key areas of its production and playout infrastructure from SDI to IP, carefully selecting technologies that enable a scalable and operationally sound transition. Under the frame contract, the SNPs will serve as gateway, conversion, multiviewing, and master control devices for newly deployed IP environments. Rai will also leverage the SNP with JPEG XS compression capability to support production-quality, low-latency connectivity between facilities, including links to outside broadcast vehicles.

SNP was selected for its ability to consolidate multiple critical functions into a single, highly flexible platform, helping streamline workflows in IP-based MCR environments. The unique SNP design enables it to be easily reconfigured with different personalities and upgraded in the field with new functionality. Its broad interoperability with third-party ST 2110 equipment was also a key factor in meeting Rai’s tender requirements.

At Rai, some SNPs will serve as IP gateways and some as low-latency, HDR-capable production multiviewers, which enable content from different video formats and HDR systems to be integrated into a consistent display environment. Other SNP devices will be configured with the Master Control Lite (MCL) personality, delivering branding, live graphics, and full master control functionality within the framework of the industry-proven platform. SNPs configured with JPEG XS compression will enable Rai to reduce the cost of video connectivity between facilities by using less bandwidth for signal transport.

“We are proud to support this multiyear project, which is a great example of how broadcasters are approaching IP migration in a thoughtful, incremental way,” said Mathias Eckert, senior vice president and general manager of EMEA and APAC for Imagine Communications. “SNP was designed specifically for this kind of transition, allowing customers to move from SDI to IP with confidence, interoperability, and clear operational benefits.”

The initial SNP orders will support deployments at two sites: the creation of an IP backbone for Rai’s Turin MCR and an IP infrastructure build-out at a facility in Rome. Over the duration of the three-year contract, multiple additional orders are anticipated as Rai expands its IP transition across a wider network of sites, ultimately spanning more than 25 locations nationwide.

LONDON—Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins.

ITN’s newly built production control room, responsible for delivering daily news coverage across two newsrooms, delivers reduced latency and greater flexibility. Architected and delivered by Techex, the system combines the TAG Video Systems Realtime media platform with Matrox Video ConvertIP decoders, providing ITN with responsive, fully configurable monitoring within its new PCR.

“As longtime partners with TAG Video Systems, we were able to bring our experience to bear while designing this system using the TAG-Matrox Video integration,” John Treadwell, Techex senior strategic account manager for global accounts, said. “We worked closely with ITN to capture requirements, validate the design and deliver the project. That collaboration will continue as we support ITN in evolving the system now that it’s live.”

TAG’s Realtime media platform is a fully software-based system. It unifies probing, monitoring, visualization and analysis into a single platform. The platform’s adaptive architecture enables efficient load balancing, rapid mosaic generation and on-the-fly transcoding, all within the IP domain. ITN has harnessed its support for SMPTE ST 2110 and JPEG XS in the new PCR to provide a scalable, future-ready monitoring solution for live news production.

The deployment drives down multiviewer latency to between 1 and 1.5 frames, achieved through the Matrox ConvertIP ST 2110-HDMI interfaces driving the PCR’s 10 4K multiviewer displays.

“With TAG, we’ve been able to realize the agility of an all-IP monitoring workflow while retaining the low latency and reliability that operators are used to in traditional galleries,” James Wickes, lead media engineer at ITN Productions, said. “Matrox’s ConvertIP technology delivers that responsiveness on screen, and with Techex helping us bring the two together in a cohesive architecture, we’ve been able to future-proof our gallery and the production workflows that depend on it.”

The system’s low latency is made possible due to the Matrox ConvertIP decoders translating IP signals into native HDMI outputs with deterministic timing and no perceptible lag. Their ability to maintain consistent, frame-accurate synchronization across all 4K displays ensures the live feel operators rely on when cutting between sources.

“The Matrox ConvertIP family was designed exactly for projects like this. Seeing ITN achieve such low-latency multiviewer performance across multiple 4K displays is a great demonstration of how tight partnerships can bring immediacy and confidence back into IP-based control rooms,” said Daniel Maloney, technical marketing manager at Matrox Video.

TAG’s Operator Console enables ITN staff in the gallery to adapt multiviewer screens quickly to the current production. “ITN’s new gallery is a great example of how IP-native monitoring can reach full broadcast responsiveness,” said Paul Briscoe, TAG chief architect. “In a newsroom environment, the immediacy of information delivery, while retaining the flexibility of a software-defined system, is hugely validating. It demonstrates that an advanced, all-IP control room can meet the real-time demands that live production requires. Techex’s approach brought together the strengths of TAG and Matrox Video in a way that allowed ITN to focus purely on production rather than infrastructure.”

More information is available on the TAG, Matrox Video and Techex websites.

Vitec has acquired Datapath, a developer of real-time video processing for large-scale video walls, AVoIP content distribution and KVM control in mission-critical control rooms, commercial applications and creative environments.

“Datapath is a highly respected Pro AV industry leader, renowned for its engineering excellence, intuitive video-wall and control-room solutions, and decades of heritage in video hardware and software development,” said Nicolas Quesne, deputy CEO of VITEC. “Its portfolio complements our IPTV distribution technologies and opens new opportunities in the control-room sector. This move marks an exciting new phase for VITEC as we continue our growth as a company.”

The acquisition strengthens VITEC’s video wall and video distribution portfolio, offering customers access to expanded engineering capability, customer support, distribution and geographical reach, the company said.

Datapath's video wall processing, multidisplay graphics and AV-over-IP engineering expertise will be integrated into VITEC’s solutions, allowing it to offer a broader range of capabilities to support IPTV distribution applications. Once the integration is complete, nearly 50% of VITEC’s workforce will be engineers, it said.

“Bringing VITEC and Datapath together will allow us to accelerate product development and offer an even broader range of solutions, features and services,” Phil Webster, vice president of R&D for VITEC, said. “We’ve worked hard internally to align systems and strengthen both businesses, and we’re excited to integrate our combined expertise.”

Webster led the Datapath R&D team and is now responsible for the engineering teams across the entire VITEC portfolio of video streaming solutions.

Datapath’s product names and categories, including its video-wall controllers and processors, AV-over-IP solutions, capture cards and control-room solutions, will remain within the VITEC portfolio. VITEC said it intends to maintain familiarity while enhancing support and development capabilities for Datapath.

Datapath serves customers in more than 100 countries across the professional AV, defense, education, security and health care industries.

More information is available on the Vitec website.

The German manufacturer Guntermann & Drunck has announced that it will launch a new generation of its popular multiviewing tool, the PersonalWorkplace-Controller, in early 2024. 

The control room specialist  also reported that it will be demonstrating the new PersonalWorkplace-Controller generation at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in Barcelona from January 30 to February 2, 2024.

The PersonalWorkplace-Controller is a fully integrated solution that supports the smooth operation of complex activities and processes in control rooms or control centers, G&D explained.  

G&D said that the solution is designed to address the fact that more and more image and video signals are now entering the control room, where they need to be monitored, controlled, and managed. Employees as well as teams have to process a lot of visual information, analyze information and coordinate activities. This is often carried out on many screens at different places in the room. 

With the PersonalWorkplace-Controller from G&D, workflows and processes can be conveniently operated from one monitor by flexibly displaying multiple sources, the company said. 

The latest generation of the PersonalWorkplace-Controller, which will be launched at the beginning of 2024, system captures and transmits up to 27 image sources to up to four 5K displays or other screen configurations as well as additional IP streams. Each source can be dynamically scaled, repositioned, and controlled.

The tool is also designed to facilitate individual configurations to optimize workflows. Instead of using a separate monitor for each process, the PersonalWorkplace-Controller captures and transmits multiple video signals and streams to a larger monitor or multiple displays. Working areas can be flexibly configured, scaled, and arranged using different computer sources and video streams. The image sources can be individually overlapped, cropped, or protected against each other without being restricted to the conventional four- or six-image layout. Users can easily switch between saved presets making the system quick and easy to use even with different application or by different employees, the company reported.  

In addition to the clear visualization on one monitor, the PersonalWorkplace-Controller also enables integrated and flexible access to all required data in real time. 

The new range offers an optimal user experience with supported resolutions of up to 5K @ 60Hz. Multiple screens of the same resolution can be combined as extended monitors to create large displays, G&D said. 

In addition, the company said that the different variants of the PersonalWorkplace-Controller offer unlimited potential for individual design solutions and can be deployed in a variety of ways for different application areas. 

The system provides invaluable benefits both at individual operator consoles and in the context of a video wall. In addition to the optimized product variants, the manufacturer is also launching a new input card system that enables the seamless integration of remote sources via fiber. With the new models, which are equipped with the “MAX” add-on, the application is no longer restricted by the physical limits of local cabling, the company reported. 

More information is available here. 

Cooler fall temperatures may be on the way, but the heat is always on for the broadcast and IT equipment in master control. All electronics generate heat—and that heat can build up and damage the various components you need to run your station or provide access to content for post production. Proper cooling extends the life of your gear and makes it more reliable. Of course, most master controls don’t have an ambient temperature that supports IT or broadcast equipment, so you’re going to need more than the integrated fans in your equipment to keep the area cool and mitigate the heat. 

The optimal room temperature for most broadcast equipment is 68 degrees. This is not the same as modern IT server rooms. Much of the IT world has been redesigning equipment to operate in warmer temperatures—between 78 and 80 degrees—which means less cooling is required. Unfortunately, most broadcast equipment still includes temperature-sensitive components that are different than what you’d find in a typical server or switch. 

If you’re moving master control to a new area of an existing building, avoid spaces with exterior windows, which essentially act like solar heaters. And no, there is no window AC on the market that delivers enough cooling for any level of broadcast gear. 

Interior “show off” windows for master control are neither good nor bad, just expensive. Besides the never-ending battle of climate control, master control is filled with equipment that makes lots of noise. You don’t want to hear the fans, hard drive arrays and other components outside of the room—and you don’t want to transmit the heat from other parts of the building into the room. You’ll need a high-end window and a lot of insulation to compensate for both. Unless you really, really need to show off the blinking lights of your servers and broadcast gear, avoid the window. 

Given a choice in room size, bigger is always better. With a smaller space, there’s not a lot of margin for error. If the AC fails, the smaller room will get hotter faster, which means the risk of damaging your equipment gets much higher much faster. 

Some master control areas are nothing more than recommissioned closets with insufficient AC. For compact spaces like this, companies like Liebert and Emcor offer self-contained rack enclosure systems with integrated cooling systems, which can act as primary or secondary cooling alternatives. 

Remember, it’s essential that you have some way to not only cool the room but to remove heat from the equipment in the room. There are definitely more efficient equipment layouts to aid in your cooling quest. One time-tested technique is the “hot aisle/cold aisle” layout, which uses air flow management based on your equipment’s interior cooling fans. 

If you have multiple racks, the ideal cooling situation is to have them facing away from each other. The cooling fans intake air from the front, exhausting hotter air in the back, and then the hot air is directed toward the room’s AC return vent. By lowering the friction of air movement within the room, the air entering the equipment is as cold as possible. Studies have shown the hot aisle/cold aisle layout can increase AC efficiency by up to 20%, which can result in significant power savings. 

For a long time, there was a theory in our industry that colder was better. It’s true that cold is far more forgiving than heat when it comes to broadcast and IT equipment, and it’s always best to err on the side of being too cool as opposed to being too warm. However, you shouldn’t need to wear a parka if your master control is properly designed, particularly with today’s quality air conditioning systems and advanced thermostats.

Dave Van Hoy is the president of Advanced Systems Group, a systems integrator based in Emeryville, Calif., with offices in Los Angeles, the New York Metro Area, and the Rocky Mountain Region. Contact him at 510-654-8300 or visit www.asgllc.com.  

Stand 14.D10, IBC 2019, RAI, Amsterdam: Intinor Technology, Sweden’s leading developer of products and solutions for high quality video over IP networks, will launch a newly combined router panel and video mixer for the highly portable Direkt link remote production backpack at IBC 2019.

Intinor’s Direkt router is used by major broadcast and production companies for video switching and mixing on the fly, and with the new router panel and video mixer combination the unit can provide GFX-overlays and PiP.

Direkt link can send video streams to multiple receivers, including Intinor’s own receivers, designed primarily for cable TV or channel control rooms; streaming servers for web TV; DTV boxes for OTT; PCs running VLC; and receivers from other manufactures.

Intinor CEO Roland Axelsson said, “The flexibility and versatility of our Direkt link range just become even more so with our new router panel and video mixer integration, and we are delighted to featuring it at Europe’s premiere broadcast technology showcase.”

The new Direkt link backpack system configuration can be adjusted using the new router display and keypad, or from a web-interface. The interface provides the ability to build profiles and adjust parameters for each broadcast location. Those profiles can contain and retain information on the network, content destination, and video-quality. The Direkt link system can store a broadcast on a USB stick for later use in on-demand or other video applications.

The unit will also have a new NDI input, which further expands Intinor’s collaboration with NewTek and other leading NDI developers.

At IBC, Intinor will also introduce ‘Direkt link tower’, a computer chassis that includes the powerful Direkt link encoder. The tower is pre-configured to esports-mode, Intinor's performance level 6 (x264 preset “SLOW”). This is the same encoding performance that is used worldwide for major esports tournaments like DreamHack, Blast Pro Series, PGL, Gfinity and many more.

For more information, visit www.intinor.com

###

About Intinor
Intinor develops its own products and comprehensive solutions for high quality video over IP networks. With solutions for contribution, as well as for distribution and web TV, Intinor has customers ranging from small production to major television channels. Intinor also work as consultants with product development and has extensive experience in developing custom-designed systems to meet specific needs. For more information, visit www.intinor.com

Company Contact:
Daniel Lundstedt, Marketing Coordinator
+46 (0) 90-349 39 07
+46 (0) 70-148 46 68
daniel.lundstedt@intinor.se

Media Contact:
Jennie Marwick-Evans
Manor Marketing
jennie@manormarketing.tv
+44 (0) 7748 636171

MELVILLE, N.Y. – ChyronHego has announced it is supplying Florida-based Waterman Broadcasting with a complete suite of upgrades for BlueNet graphics workflow for the broadcasters main control room. The new workflow features the latest versions of ChryonHego’s CAMIO graphics asset management platform and Mosaic real-time graphics creations and playout systems, all of which are powered by Lyric PRO software.

ChyronHego's BlueNet in Use in Waterman's Control Room

Waterman replaced its previous ChyronHego HyperX2 graphics system with six Mosaic systems and swapped CAMIO servers with CAMIO MX and MX DR servers. The CAMIO servers are fully integrates with Waterman’s AP ENP computer system; Mosaic serves as the primary graphics engine; and Lyric PRO handles content creation and provides 2D/3D text, graphics and animation capabilities.

Waterman Broadcasting operates WBBH and WZVN in Florida.

When we last looked at ATSC A/85 we were primarily concerned with the key issue addressed by the document: loudness management. A/85’s official title, “ATSC Recommended Practice: Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television,” is a partial red herring because, while it obviously details processes for managing loudness, it also includes recommendations aimed at standardizing the control room environment, and creating consistency in how audio for television is created in the first place. Since the document is relatively long—72 pages for the 2013 revision—many people may not realize that it covers other factors that need to be considered when producing audio content for television.

Anyone familiar with cinema audio production will feel right at home with the control room recommendations in A/85 because it specifies that all mix rooms should be as similar as possible in their monitor setup, sound pressure levels and frequency response across the audible audio spectrum. Whereas cinema mix rooms are typically set to monitor at 85 dB, A/85 specifies different target sound pressure levels (SPL) for television mix rooms depending on room type and volume.

Because television audio is often mixed in some less than ideal environments, rooms are categorized and adjustments made to ensure that consistency is maintained despite the situation the mix engineer finds himself stuck in. Audio control rooms are split into five categories, from high-end control rooms all the way down to environments where the mix is being done through headphones.

The higher-end, higher-volume rooms have a recommended SPL at the mix position of 85 dB, while the lower-end rooms are calibrated to 76 dB, and headphone mixes are to be monitored at 74 dB SPL.

Higher SPL is necessary in larger rooms because there is more space to fill, and allowable because problematic boundaries are farther away from the sound source. SPL must go down in smaller rooms since there is less space to fill and because boundaries are closer to the sound source so room modes are easier to excite.

LEAVE IT ALONE
The one thing truly new for television mixers in this recommendation is that, just as in cinema, the level control should be calibrated, then left alone for the duration of the mix. Most television mixers, including me, are accustomed to grabbing the monitor level control whenever we need to. How this plays out in real life will depend greatly on the mix engineer and whether they are comfortable leaving that level control alone. It may be helpful to remember that the goal of all this is to create consistency when producing content in any given room, regardless of size.

ATSC A/85 room categories and SPL recommendations (*see ATSC A/85:2013 for additional clarification) Achieving consistency in mixing and monitoring rooms requires proper speaker placement, as well as handling modes and other acoustic problems inside the room. A/85 addresses these issues in Annexes B and C, covering low-frequency modes, high-frequency absorption, minimizing reflections, monitor placement and monitor choice. It recommends a practically flat response curve for all rooms and suggests equalizing the system if necessary to achieve it.

‘PERFECTLY FLAT’
However, I have found that it is better to deal with acoustic anomalies in the room before equalizing the system because modes and cancellations will continue to cause problems in the room until they are dealt with even if the system is equalized flat at the mix position.

As for which loudspeakers should be used for monitoring, the only real recommendation is that they should be “perfectly flat,” something that may prove difficult to achieve, but is certainly worth attempting. Even a perfectly flat monitor will not reproduce sound with a perfectly flat frequency response in a deficient room. A more realistic goal would be to install the best professional-level monitor with the flattest response available within the budget, then install these monitors throughout the facility.

Placement of monitors is critical and the document mentions that care should be taken when positioning to minimize reflections from console surfaces, side and rear walls, and any other reflective surface. Annex B closes with references to two documents that may be helpful to anyone requiring additional assistance with monitor placement, and additional information regarding acoustics in audio control rooms can be found in my earlier three-part series on that topic in this column.

Finally, I’d like to relay an update on my experience using loudness meters in combination with legacy meters. Even before the CALM Act became law my team and I were installing loudness meters in our live and audio post rooms, but we experienced low adoption of the devices because some mix engineers didn’t quite understand why they should change how they measured despite our instructions about the upcoming changes and imminent legislation. It appeared that it might be necessary to remove all meters that could not measure in LKFS from the mix rooms to force mixers to start learning how to use the LKFS meters. However, after spending some time behind the desk it has become apparent that having legacy meters in the control room gives the mix engineer a quick reference they’re familiar with that helps them get the initial mix off the ground, from which point they are able to mix by ear with only periodic glances at the loudness meter or any of the others.

It does seem a bit odd that this recommended practice, which is at the heart of the CALM Act, has given us a new meter and two new numbers (LKFS and True Peak) that we must pay attention to, yet also instructs us that the best method to make all of this work properly is to ignore the meter and those new numbers the majority of the time and just trust our ears. Fortunately this works very well in practice, but can take some time to grow accustomed to. Having a controlled, consistent environment to mix television content in is an idea that is long overdue and this, along with proper monitoring tools, is the linchpin that makes this entire process work.

Jay Yeary is an audio engineer and consultant. He can be reached through TV Technology or via Twitter at @audiojay.

The new Audio 5 room at Discovery Creative and Technology Center (DCTC) in Silver Spring, Md.

SILVER SPRING, MD.—As Discovery Communications launches more feeds around the globe, the volume of audio work at the Discovery Creative and Technology Center in Silver Spring, Md. is increasing. This was more work than their existing audio edit rooms could handle, so it was time for two more, but not two more of the same.

Over the past dozen years that DCTC has been in operations, audio and video workflow and technology has changed considerably. When the first four audio edit rooms were built, content was delivered and distributed on videotape, so these rooms were designed for baseband audio and video, with a discrete AES router as part of the system and an 8- or 16-channel Avid control surface for Pro Tools.

LESS HARDWARE
But now since Discovery no longer delivers physical media, but rather audio and video files, the new audio rooms needed to move away from a baseband infrastructure to a more file-based approach.

“There is not a lot of AES routing and the amount of equipment in the room has gone down significantly,” said Brinton Miller, vice president of engineering, Discovery Communications. “The new rooms have Pro Tools systems with more I/O, but less hardware.”

Audio 5 and 6 are outfitted with a 32-fader Avid System 5MC control surface, which interfaces with the Avid Pro Tools HDX digital audio workstation engine. Each room has a total of 128 channels (16 analog inputs, 16 analog outputs, 48 AES inputs and 48 AES outputs).

The system also includes an Avid Symphony Nitris DX DNxHD System with video satellite software.

The new voiceover room at Discovery Creative and Technology Center. Compared with the first four audio rooms, outboard gear for Audio 5 and 6 is pretty minimal. No longer is a local AES router needed, and the I/O for Pro Tools was expanded. Processing is mainly software-based through plug-ins for Pro Tools, rather than outboard gear.This structure is very DSP intensive. “We’ve thrown more horsepower in the Pro Tools system than we used to,” Miller said.

An example is the Minnetonka SurCode Suite of plug-ins for Dolby E, when required. “It allows for offline encoding and decoding directly in Pro Tools for our Dolby E workflow,” Miller said. “This cuts down the time it takes to decode and encode Dolby E, allowing the mixers to start and finish their projects much faster.”

Plug-ins for loudness metering include Waves WLM and TC Electronics LM6 Native. In addition, there’s loudness metering on the RTW peak and line meters, according to Miller.

Outboard gear that is used, such as the API mic preamps, along with plant router control, audio patchbays, and a few other pieces of gear, are mounted in custom cabinet/consoles on either side of the audio mixer.

Design Team: The design team was led by Discovery’s Global Technology & Operations group and included Discovery’s Technical Facilities Planning and Engineering unit, other internal Discovery groups, Discovery’s outside architect Archcentric, systems integrator CEI, and general contractor Harvey-Cleary Builders.

The Discovery Communications project team included Andrew Peterson, Wayne Caffrey, Marcus Marshall, Ferddy Calderon Moscoso and Rob Goldheim, Marc Parsons, and also Bradley Giardiello for software installation, configuration and testing.

Key Technology:
· Avid:
System 5MC Control Surface
Pro Tools HDX Digital Audio Workstation Engine
Symphony Nitris DX DNxHD System w/Video Satellite Software

·Thinklogical - DVI KVM Transport via Fiber Optic
·Focal - SM6 Powered 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Monitoring
·RTW - TM9 Touch Screen Audio Metering and Monitoring
·Tascam - HS-2000 2 Track Recorder
·Minnetonka - SurCode Software (Dolby E Master Suite)
·Sony 55-inch Pro Displays
·Marshall - Lip Sync Monitor
·Telos - Hybrid and Codec
·Imagine (Harris) - Router and Control Panel
·API - Microphone Pre Amps
·Neumann - U87 mic in VO room Because of the technology, the size of Audio 5 and 6 is about 60 percent that of the previous four rooms: 13-feet 5-inches (L) x 12-feet, 3-inches (W) compared with the dimensions of Audio 4 that are 20 feet, 4-inches (L) x 14-feet, 4-inches (W).

“Audio 5 and 6 have a very compact configuration yet it features a large mixing surface and provides a dedicated producer space,” said Jay Brown, vice president of Communications Engineering Inc. (CEI), the Newington, Va.-based systems integrator that provided professional services that included consultation, project management, system design, documentation, implementation, testing, commissioning and select equipment for this project.

DEPARTURES FROM THE PAST
Over the years, Discovery has developed standardized ways of creating stem mixes and doing things in specific ways for each type of content to be edited. The Avid System 5MC control surface has been programmed with a lot of custom presets, so that with a one button push, an entire editing session can be set up. This obviates the need for any routing switcher salvos.

Audio 5 and 6 are 5.1 rooms that can create a variety of mixes.

For monitoring, Discovery chose Focal SM6 powered loudspeakers. This is another departure from the past when separate amps and loudspeakers were used.“In reality, 10 years ago, there was a better experience with high-end amps and high-end passive loudspeakers,” Miller said. “Now there are more players in the field [of powered loudspeakers].”In addition to quality, powered loudspeaker systems take up less space in the racks of amplifiers, which, with their inherent noise and heat loads, are no longer needed.

In Audio 5 and 6, all the loudspeakers are on stands, rather than wall-mounted to allow flexibility of re-arranging the room should future needs require. “The custom stand for the center speaker is designed to nest into the large video monitor stand in the same fashion as Russian-nesting dolls,” Brown said.

Unlike Audio 1-4 which each have a dedicated VO room, Audio 5 and 6 share one VO. “In reality only 30 to 40 percent of work requires a VO at any given time,” Miller said. If needed, any or all VO rooms in the facility could be routed to any given audio room.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL NOISE
Another big change from the previous audio rooms was how the acoustics in Audio 5 and 6 were handled, both for noise and isolation control and for internal reflection control.

The design team used a combination of different diffusion and absorption materials to minimize detrimental reflections. The need for noise isolation grew as the neighborhood around DCTC grew. “When we built in Silver Spring in 2002, it was a building surrounded by parking lots,” Miller said. “But in the last 10 years, every bit of land has turned to high rises. There is constant construction which often includes air blasting to remove bedrock.” Not surprisingly this external noise has impacted VO and audio edit sessions.

Audio 5 and 6 are each fully floated, a “room within a room” approach, with floating floors, walls and ceilings. Since these rooms are built on top of the slab, the floor height is a foot and a half higher than surrounding floors. Air handling is fed from individual dedicated HVAC systems.

With Audio 5 and 6, the design team took a new look at internal acoustical surface treatment. The previous rooms relied on absorptive material, but with larger console surface for Audio 5 and 6, control of early reflections became a bigger concern. But if the room were to be fully absorptive, it would be too dead.

Working with the architect, the design team discussed how to minimize detrimental reflections, with the solution being a combination of different diffusion and absorption materials. The front wall, behind the console and plasma screen is 100 percent diffusion from RPG Diffusor Systems, Miller said. These are RPG Diffractal 4x2 units.

On the ceiling above the control surface and the audio mixer’s position is an array of RPG Expo panels. The rest of the ceiling has 2-inch absorption. The side walls are fabric-covered absorption, which the rear wall is a 24-inch deep bass trap covered with fabric. In the center of the rear bass trap are six Omniffusors to “break things up,” according to Miller.

The voiceover booth is prefabricated from Acoustic Systems ETS-Lindgren. Although a pre-fab, the configuration was custom, including building it so that its floor level matched that of the two audio rooms it works with.

Audio 5 came online in the third quarter of 2013, and Audio 6 followed in the second quarter of 2014. Miller said that with the addition of these new rooms, “[our] operational process is more efficient in a world to speed up the post process where timelines are getting shorter and shorter.”

In the last two Inside Audio columns (Exploring Audio Control Room Acoustics, Part I, Exploring Audio Control Room Acoustics, Part II) we looked at some of the reasoning behind the design of high-end audio control rooms. This time we’ll take a look at what can be done when space for the control room is inappropriate and the budget inadequate. How do we create a decent control room when the space is too small; the floor is raised; the space above the drop ceiling is open; and the walls are as thin as those of a cheap motel?

We’ll focus on four areas that will help overcome these issues and deliver a room that should function properly for professional audio work, and each can be adapted to fit the available budget. The information presented here has been gleaned through experience building audio control rooms in small spaces that now produce high-quality audio for television.

ISOLATE THE SPACE
Controlling sound transmission into the room is essential so the audio engineer can be certain that what they hear is direct sound from the speakers and not from exterior noise sources. We first must make sure the walls have enough mass to act as a transmission barrier and that all penetrations are sealed.

Walls need to span from the floor above to the floor below and should be extended if they don’t. Single layer walls require one or two additional layers of sheetrock to increase the wall’s mass. MDF can be used for the top layer instead of sheetrock to add mass without stealing space from the interior footprint.

Ideally, all adjacent room walls will receive the same treatment as the interior walls to minimize sound transmission between the rooms and to allow the sealed air space between the walls to act as an additional barrier. All openings, including those above ceilings and below raised floors, should be closed and patched, then sealed with an acoustic sealant or multiple layers of caulk.

If the budget doesn’t support the purchase of an acoustical door, then a heavy solid-core door with high-quality, properly adjusted acoustic seals will work as a less-effective substitute. It is best to purchase a real acoustical window if one is required, but if that is budget-prohibitive then an add-in acoustical window kit or, at a minimum, a double-pane industrial grade window can be used.

CONTROL STANDING WAVES AND MODES
Standing waves and modes are worse in small spaces because they are concentrated into just a handful of frequencies instead of being spread across a larger range as they would in large rooms. Modes are a characteristic of room dimensions, while standing waves are stationary modes below 300 Hz caused by reflections from the room’s boundaries.

A simple calculation for determining room modes is the formula 1130/2d=f. This breaks down as the speed of sound (1130 ft/s), divided by a single dimension of the room times two, equaling the frequency of the mode.

We need to calculate the fundamentals for height, length and width; then the harmonics by multiplying the fundamentals by two, three, etc. Charting these modes (Fig. 1) allows us to see which frequencies will cause problems in the room. Rectangular rooms generally give the best performance while cube-shaped rooms contain the nastiest modes because height, width and depth dimensions are the same, resulting in identical mode frequencies, all landing at the same location in the room, creating giant modes as well as cancelation of other frequencies.

Fig. 1

With a limited budget and no way to expand the space, our options for dealing with modes are limited. Experiment with placing traps in the corners, rear and front of the room until low frequencies seem under control. A significant concern in small rooms, especially cube-shaped ones, is that the modes and cancelations tend to be worse near the middle of the room; so make sure the mix position is located elsewhere.

CONTROL REFLECTIONS
Reflections interfere with our perception of direct sound from the speakers by summing or canceling some of the direct sound we hear. Mid- and high-frequency reflections are generally the most obvious and can be controlled by removing reflective surfaces near the speakers and placing acoustic absorbing panels on the room’s hard surfaces.

A good way to determine where to begin applying absorption is to stand behind the main speakers and see where they are pointed. Panels should be placed in their initial position then moved, added or removed systematically until reflections are minimized.

Once frequency response at the mix position seems even across the spectrum, panels can be mounted permanently. At this point there should be no need to add more absorption since it may cause the room to sound dead. If additional treatment is desired then diffusion should be used to disperse reflections rather than absorbing them. Placement of traps, absorbers, and diffusors is often more of a process than a one-time event and occasional adjustments may be required.

REMOVE INTERNAL NOISE SOURCES
One frustrating and entirely controllable element of building an audio control room is that, at some point, equipment will get installed and some of it will make noise. Hard drives and fans are typically the worst culprits so, along with CPUs, they should be moved to an equipment room and out of the control room.

Keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) extenders make this relocation of noise-making equipment fairly easy, but they can be expensive. If the budget doesn’t provide for the purchase of KVMs then an acoustic isolation cabinet can be used, or cables may need to be extended out of the room to an adjacent equipment closet.

A successfully built audio control room is one that insures the audio engineer can rely on what they hear while working in it. By focusing on isolation, control and noise elimination we can transform seemingly unusable spaces into effective audio control rooms. Still, it’s most important to listen critically as we make room improvements to help determine whether our changes will improve the room, make no difference or make things worse.

In audio engineering, the right decision often comes down to what we can discern with the most powerful tool in our toolbox, our ears.

Jay Yeary spends his days working for a large media corporation where he has the opportunity to work on audio control room projects of all sizes. He can be reached through TV Technology or via Twitter at @audiojay.

PART 2
Welcome to part two of our look at audio control room acoustics and the reasons we expend so much effort to build great sounding rooms. In part one we looked at how low frequencies and reflections behave in both large and small rooms. This time we’re going to take a high-level look at the topic of isolation and see that it is the foundation upon which audio control rooms are built.

NOISE SOURCES

Isolation is primarily concerned with making rooms quiet through noise control and it depends mostly on mass. It’s also the area of control room design that gets the most scrutiny when a project is proposed because proper isolation of some spaces can be costly. The noisier the environment, the costlier and more invasive it will be to properly isolate the room, but without proper isolation the mix engineer may not be able to tell whether what he/she is hearing is a part of the mix or part of the environment.

There are certain situations, such as television mobile units, where there is little that can be done because the environment is always going to be noisy. Similarly, some live audio mix rooms will have high levels of acoustic noise, not entirely from the equipment, but from the communications that are necessary during a live event. Mix engineers for live sporting events are seemingly bombarded with noise from every direction, but they still need the ability to turn it all down, tune people out, and focus on listening if audio issues crop up.

Room planISOLATION
External noise sources include not just sounds made acoustically, but also those transmitted through floors, walls, ceilings and mechanical systems. To properly isolate the audio control room, noise from all of these external sources must be minimized or eliminated. However, isolation isn’t just about keeping noise out of the control room; it’s also about minimizing leakage into adjoining spaces. This is especially important when other production spaces are adjacent or nearby because the sound leaking out of the audio control room could interfere with work in other rooms.

High-end audio control rooms are designed with isolation in mind and are perfect studies in noise control. These rooms are actually built as a room within a room, with the outer room’s floor and thick walls connected to the building, and an inner room that is separated by an air cavity. This room-within-a-room design is excellent for isolation and noise control, but requires more physical space, so they are rare in today’s television production facilities where space is always at a premium.

There are also hefty construction requirements. The inner room sits on a floating floor designed to eliminate noise transmission into the room through the building’s structure and requires pouring two floors, one on top of the other, with a layer of isolating materials between them. The solid ceilings of inner rooms are suspended from the outer ceiling by isolators and inner room walls are attached only to the floor and ceiling of the inner room.

Floating floor levels This method of construction isolates the outer and inner room from each other because most surfaces are physically separated, and some form of isolator separates surfaces that must meet. Of course cable troughs and pipes do penetrate the space, but they include insulators to help avoid bridging the rooms.

The ultimate goal of this design is to achieve minimal leakage of sound through the control room’s structure, and an acoustically quiet space with a low-noise floor (around 30 dBA for a quiet control room). Construction documents call for walls in audio spaces to target a sound transmission class (STC) rating, which rates sound transmission loss through walls, doors and windows. STC ratings are based on frequencies concentrated in the range of human speech (125 Hz to 4 kHz) rather than the full spectrum of frequencies that will be heard in the control room. Architects and construction foremen are familiar with it, and can purchase materials and components with this rating, so it’s a good reference to work with.

Windows and doors in the control room need to have as close to the same STC rating as the walls, which means doors will be heavy and come with special seals and windows will have multiple panes of glass. This allows everything to function as a unit, preventing a similar amount of sound transmission from the entire room.

HVAC SYSTEMS
Requiring just as much forethought as the room design is the design of the HVAC system. The systems that contractors install every day usually do not work well in audio control rooms because they tend to have small rectangular ducts with sharp right angle bends, a design that creates turbulence and noise in the system. We want to avoid either acoustical or mechanical noise from the HVAC system since we’ve gone through so much trouble to make the room quiet.

Some of this noise can be reduced by locating the mechanical components far away from the control room, installing vibration isolators where the unit mounts to the building, or placing the mechanical components in an acoustical enclosure. The system should be designed to be high volume, low velocity to minimize turbulence. Ducting should be large in diameter, flexible, round if possible, and some can be lined with acoustic material if additional soundproofing is required.

It is also critical, when designing the control room HVAC system, to make sure it does not bridge into a noisy space since there could be transmission from that space through the ducting.

That wraps up our quick look at isolation. There’s not nearly enough space in this magazine to go into it in depth, but I find exercises like this to be a helpful reminder of why we expend so much effort when building audio rooms. In the third and final installment of this series, we’ll look at the importance of room size and finish up with practical tips for working with small spaces and tiny budgets.

Jay Yeary is not an acoustician, but has spent many years building audio rooms, trying to make sure they give mix engineers the accurate listening environment they need. He can be reached through TV Technology or via Twitter at @TVTechJay.

When you think of audio control rooms you most likely recall a glossy magazine cover shot of a gigantic room inhabited by a large mixing desk with odd-looking geometric shapes and acoustic treatment of the walls. Some of those same people would probably be surprised to discover that, in television at least, this type of room is the exception rather than the norm.

Shrinking budgets and the desire to create content for new markets means that audio control room budgets continue to decrease and they’re being forced into ever- smaller and less functional spaces.

The point of building an audio mix room in the first place is to give the audio mix engineer the ability to hear everything with clarity and accuracy and to do so without inconveniencing the rest of the crew. Video editors and graphic artists won’t easily give up color-matched monitors and light-controlled, low-glare workspaces, yet audio mixers are rarely offered quiet, acoustically-true workspaces to work in.

Part of the problem is that nonlinear editing software and video production tools have dropped in price dramatically as have the machines they run on and the monitors they use for display. Meanwhile the cost of audio consoles has remained high, space is difficult to obtain, and construction costs are always increasing, all of which means that audio production rooms now often cost more than video production rooms.

In a business that rarely considers audio anything other than a nuisance, this is a dangerous position to be in. Of course there are solid scientific reasons for traditional audio control room design, so let’s look at the benefits of large control rooms and what we can do to minimize the inherent shortcomings of small control rooms.

LARGER CONTROL ROOMS SOUND BETTER
One fact that is rarely mentioned when space is parceled out for audio control rooms is that low-frequency waveforms are enormous and they cause enormous problems in small rooms. If we generate a 20 Hz sine wave and play it through speakers capable of reproducing it, the resulting waveform will be 56.5 feet long (68 degree air at 1,130 feet per second), though most people will feel this frequency rather than hear it.

If instead we generate an easily heard 60 Hz sine wave, the resulting wavelength is 18.84 feet long. Low frequencies are omnidirectional, so they’re essentially emanating from the speakers in all directions, which means we end up with some fairly large waveforms heading for the walls, ceiling and floor.

As these waveforms are made up of energy, the room needs to be large enough to accommodate them or this energy will build up and create standing waves (resonant modes). Waveforms created by mixing sounds together are much more complex than simple sine waves, so most small rooms contain multiple problematic modes. Often these modes result in low-frequency build-up in the corners and rear of the control room where the client sits.

Side absorbers It’s worth noting that even large rooms have modes, but because there is more space (volume) the modes will be more evenly distributed. Smaller rooms mean less space, so the modes are far more likely to either interact or separate, which will cause the frequency response to vary at different locations throughout the room. Small, cube-shaped rooms have the most mode problems of all and should be avoided at all costs.

The best help for standing waves is to make the room larger, but since this is usually not an option such spaces will need to be treated by using a spectrum analyzer to locate frequency build-up where it occurs in the room and then by careful placement of absorbers and bass traps to minimize the problem modes as much as possible.

LARGE ROOMS MINIMIZE REFLECTIONS
When we sit at the mix position we anticipate that all sound will emanate directly from the speakers even though some of it will be indirect sound reflected from a surface in the room. Hard surfaces of all types cause reflections, including the mixing desk, walls, floors, ceilings and video monitors.

Reflections are actually normal and help us determine room dimensions as we listen, but when these reflections arrive at the mix position at a decibel level similar to that of the mix they begin to interfere with our ability to accurately discern the sound coming from the speakers.

All sounds arriving within the first 50 ms are interpreted by our brains as if they originated from the same sound source (Haas effect). So if there are lots of early reflections in the soundfield it is unlikely we will hear them or have any idea that the room has become part of the mix.

Diffusors in the ceiling Larger rooms minimize reflections from walls and ceilings because the distance from the speakers and the mix position is greater. In smaller rooms those surfaces are much closer. Reflections from them must be factored in and dealt with. Large rooms also give midrange and high frequencies more time to abate in air, yet those same frequencies are likely to encounter a wall or some other surface in a small room before they have the chance to dissipate, so they become audible reflections.

Whether a reflection is early, late or somewhere in between, it is advantageous to minimize it to the point that it does not interfere with the mix engineer’s ability to accurately hear at the mix position. This can be done by moving or removing the reflective surfaces, placing absorption where the reflections occur or adding a diffusor to scatter them and minimize their impact. Usually a combination of the three provides the best solution and care must be taken to avoid adding so much absorption that the room becomes lifeless and fatiguing to mix in.

We’ve looked at only a couple of aspects of control room acoustic issues in this column and just at a very high level. The science of acoustics is much deeper, even on these two aspects, than we have the space to delve into here. If you find yourself in need of help with room acoustic issues, hiring a professional acoustic consultant will be money well spent.

Next time we’ll look at isolation, room shapes, some practical applications and continue assessing how to do the best work we can in small control room spaces.

Jay Yeary is not an acoustician, but is fortunate enough to know and work alongside people who have considerable talent when it comes to audio room acoustics. He can be reached through TV Technology or via Twitter at @TVTechJay.