LONDON—Custom Consoles has completed work on the deployment of a large Module-R desk and MediaWall monitor display mount for an expanded master control room at Gravity Media's West London Production Center in White City.

The Production Center is a creative media hub equipped to support onsite and fully distributed remote production workflows. It spans 38,000 square feet, including live studios, production control galleries and editing suites. The facility is equipped with advanced broadcast technology, including high-capacity SMPTE 2110 IP connectivity via multiple ISPs.

The new MCR desk complements over 50 Custom Consoles desks already active in production control rooms and related suites within the West London Production Center. MediaWall provides similar versatility, including easy reconfiguration of display screens and their connecting cables.

"The console desks and MediaWall solutions from Custom Consoles are a perfect fit for our evolving operational needs," said Róisín McKeniry, Gravity Media head of technical operations at the Production Center. "Our new master control room is one of the largest in Europe and was delivered in close collaboration with Custom Consoles. The flexibility of the Module-R desk system and the adaptability of MediaWall have helped us to design a highly efficient future-ready environment that supports traditional and remote production workflows across our West London Production Center."

"We have worked with Gravity Media for many years, supplying desks and MediaWalls for many of its facilities in Britain and overseas, as well as partner-related projects," adds Gary Fuller, Custom Consoles' sales manager. "Among these have been desks and MediaWalls for the West London Production Center ahead of its opening in 2023. Most of the desks are from our Modular-R series. The installed base of MediaWalls at the Production Center includes arrays ranging in width from nearly 2 meters to over 5 meters, housed in the MCR, PCR 3, 4, 5 and 6, the EVS control room and broadcast operations control."

The newly installed MCR desk comprises a 15-bay central section, plus left and right wings with 10-bays each. The resultant U-shaped structure is designed to combine space efficiency with maximum ease of operation. A 13.25 meter wide MediaWall with 7 meter side sections allows a total of 54 55-inch monitor display screens to be accommodated in 15 plus 24 plus 15 surround configuration, plus additional equipment such as loudspeakers.

Module-R is a structured technical desking solution that enables project-specific desk configurations to be constructed from standard 19-inch base sections, rear equipment pods and work surfaces, providing an ergonomically efficient environment for control rooms of all sizes. Module-R has been tested by FIRA to ensure compliance with current ISO standards and is supplied with full cable management plus internal 19-inch racking accessible via removable front and rear cover panels. All rear surfaces and pods are completely interchangeable. Cable entry is via the underside of any leg or base section, supplemented by desktop cable brush strips. Unlike one-piece control room furniture, Module-R desks can be expanded or reconfigured at any time during their working life. Customers can select from a wide range of options including single-, double- or triple-width base units, 15-, 30-, 45 or 90-degree angled corner units or curved desk sections to follow any radius.

MediaWall is a free-standing flat screen mounting solution designed to accommodate large-format monitor displays. Height-adjustable horizontal beams and T-slot mounting enable easy configuration. Integral cable management system takes care of unsightly wiring. MediaWall is configured from 1.5-, 2- or 2.5-meter-length horizontal beams suspended between 2.35-meter uprights and can be angled to wrap around the operators. A free-standing variant of MediaWall, MediaPost is a portable large-screen mount that includes height adjustment, internal cable management and an equipment shelf. MediaPost is fitted with rear wheels to allow easy relocation and will accept flat-screen monitors up to 65 inches diagonal. It can be joined with a horizontal support bar to take multiple screens.

LEIGHTON BUZZARD, U.K.—Custom Consoles has announced refinements to its M-Desk Technical HA heavy duty height-adjustable desk workstation. 

New features include high-strength CDF construction, metal-clad vertical supports, LED lighting at the front and sides and in the footwell, desktop cable trays feeding work-surface cable port and five under-side power sockets for desktop equipment, the company said.

MDesk-Technical HA is a heavy-duty workstation with an electrically motorized desktop that can be adjusted in height from 10.25 to 26 inches (66 to 125 cm) above floor level. Free-standing 19-inch desktop pods can be specified when ordered or added later, it said. 

The latest version builds on the original and offers options, such as a desktop induction pad to charge mobile devices. Retained features include a 882-pound (400 kg) lifting capacity, optional personal or PC storage and free-standing 19-inch desktop pods. A wide range of worktop surface finishes in hard-wearing Marmoleum are available, it said.

The company will also show a Module-R series console. It enables project-specific control desks to be created from standard elements in many desired configurations.

Custom Consoles Module-R is mix-and-matchable control-room furniture system that allows aesthetically attractive and robust broadcast control room furniture to be created on a project-specific basis from a range of high-quality pods, base sections, 19-inch rack housings, worktops, end-panel modules and legs, it said.

Coordinated desktop-level pods are available as single-bay sections with up to 13 U chassis capacity. Module-R desks are designed to offer the greatest possible freedom of choice in terms of desk size, configuration and facilities. Module-R desks can be expanded or reconfigured at any time during their working life. 

Auxiliary pods of various sizes for broadcast industry standard 19-inch rack-mounting equipment can be specified at the time of installation or added later, it said. 

The company will be showing the refinements during the Media Production & Technology Show at Olympia London, May 15-16 at Stand J26.

 More information is available on the company’s website. 

HILVERSUM, The Netherlands—NEP Worldwide Netherlands has equipped its new production facility at its studio headquarters here in Media Park with 10 Module-R technical control desks from Custom Consoles—three desks for the new suites and seven dedicated to editing in post-production. 

Two production control rooms are each outfitted with a 23-foot wide inline Module-R with a 3U-high sloping-front equipment pod along the rear of each of its 13 bays. They include a custom section to house a Grass Valley production switcher. Behind each is another 23-foot wide, 14-bay desk, similar in design and positioned in parallel to the Module-R consoles in the front of the rooms, the company said..

Three 12-foot-wide, seven-bay inline desks provide supporting control facilities. Two audio suites are equipped with a U-shaped Module-R desk, each configured to accept a Lawo audio production control panel, it said.

A 12-foot wide inline video switching control desk, with seven bays, each offering 3U-high equipment pods, has been installed in a production control room. The desk’s design also supports two groups of camera control panels.

All 10 Module-R desks have matching graphite Marmoleum worktops, gray side panels and silver-anodized extruded aluminum legs with black-painted floor skids, it said.

"NEP has proved a very loyal customer over the years, and we are very pleased to have been chosen to help equip them for this project," said Custom Consoles sales manager Gary Fuller. 

More information is available on the Custom Consoles website.

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, U.K.—Sports television service provider AE Live has selected Custom Consoles M-Desk-Technical control room furniture for its new graphics suites. Six suites in total have been equipped, two with seven-bay and four with five-bay units.

"We specialize in delivering creative, innovative and data-rich services for live sport broadcasts," comments Andy McCall, AE Live's facilities and health and safety manager. "That includes creating, developing and delivering on-screen graphics, virtual studios, augmented reality graphics, optimized feeds for devices and audiences, newsroom graphics, virtual advertising, and in-stadia feeds across a broad range of platforms and in multiple languages.”

McCall noted that they’d selected the furniture because it allowed “our staff to concentrate on projects delivered from the AE Live Campus without the visual or acoustic distractions that reduce concentration in an open-plan working environment” and because it “makes highly efficient use of the available space while retaining the freedom to specify the exact features we needed from a standardized range of structural elements. The resultant desks are very strongly built including under-desk pedestals to accommodate IT equipment, monitor display mounts and integral cable management. They also combine comfortable ergonomics with elegant styling." 

"MDesk-Technical continues to be a popular choice for IT-centric projects such as modern graphics suites," added Gary Fuller, Custom Consoles' Sales Manager. "The series is designed for control rooms where equipment is housed outside rather than inside the console and no control panels are embedded into the work surface." 

LEIGHTON BUZZARD, U.K.—Custom Consoles has provided a new design for its EditOne workstation that enables more people to utilize the desk, as well as provide it with a new look.

The main design change for the EditOne desk is making the previously curved front edge straight, allowing two people to use the desk simultaneously. Custom Consoles is also offering new colors for the desk, including powder coated RAL 7043 traffic grey vertical panels and a choice of Marmoleum or laminate work desktop and shelf surfaces.

EditOne’s desk styling also uses sculpted MDF support, features a raised monitor shelf, front and rear corners with a large radius and three equipment pods with a collective 9U of rack space. Full cable management is provided; power distribution is optional. An auxiliary equipment pedestal with an additional 11U of rack space and an integral worktop can be positioned to the left or right of the desk.

Additional features of the EditOne desk include three mounting points along the rear of the desk that can accommodate a microphone and flat screen display monitors. An additional mounting point can be used to support the guest microphone.

For more information, visit Custom Consoles’ website. 

LONDON—One of the many unexpected results from the coronavirus crisis is the important role furniture now plays in both enabling people to carry on working away from their offices and helping them to socially distance when they are at their facility. For broadcasters, specialist technical consoles and desks have long provided a comfortable, ergonomic environment for very specific jobs, such as sound mixing, video editing and color grading. Now these are allowing those tasks to be done either safely at work or remotely.

In some ways, however, this necessary but occasionally taken for granted market was already adapting to changing broadcaster requirements. New studios and facilities are smaller than their predecessors. This is due partly to modern equipment being both more compact and software-based, which enables a large number of functions to be carried out on either dedicated hardware or a laptop computer. There are also likely to be fewer personnel in a control room, although separate, designated areas for audio, lighting and production are still the norm.

HYBRID WORK ENVIRONMENTS

“There’s certainly been shrinkage in terms of studio and suite size, with less equipment installed,” observes Ryan Haberman, chief executive of Forecast Consoles in Hauppauge, N.Y. “But now [since COVID-19] there is a lot of change and we don’t know exactly where things are going. With some broadcasters we have seen a lot of working from home, collaborating over Zoom calls, but those with larger facilities have been putting people in separate rooms for sound, lighting, direction and so on.”

Jansen Hahn, chief operating officer of TBC Consoles in Edgewood, N.Y., does not think there has been a “seismic shift” in the size and shape of facility spaces and the furniture being requested post-pandemic, merely a faster continuation of what was already happening.

“Open offices were all the rage a couple of years ago but there has been a migration from those to smaller edit suites,” he says. “There has been a lot of talk about how to respond post-pandemic and we’re seeing different approaches. Some broadcast staff are doing less intensive work at home and then coming into the facility for a day to finish off. There are fewer people in control rooms and more physical separation between operators.”

Pre-pandemic, Hahn says, there was already a trend towards isolated working areas, particularly in news.

“We were seeing a lot of automation being used and the newsroom staff were working in pods at U-shaped consoles,” he explains. “What has changed now is there is more emphasis on separation between the operators, sometimes with a physical barrier, although partitions are nothing new.” In May, TBC announced a range of partition options to meet social distancing requirements and enable workspaces to be modified. These can be added to any console in the current TBC range, with transparent flexiglass available to facilitate collaborative working.

SAFETY SCREENS

U.K.-based Custom Consoles has similarly been supplying its new Operator Safety Screens to clients for attaching to furniture already installed in facilities. Among those who have added these partitions are Al Jazeera, Amazon Prime, IMG, QVC and Racing UK. BBC Studioworks has put Operator Safety Screens into all its control areas, including the production gallery for the TC1 studio at Television Centre in west London. The screens have been designed for Customer Consoles’ Module-R range but can be fitted to not only other models in the manufacturer’s portfolio but third-party furniture as well.

The forward end of each Safety Screen is a large transparent panel that overlaps the desk. This lets through a lot of light and creates a line-of-sight to video monitor walls for the desk operators. Meryl McLaren, commercial director at BBC Studioworks, commented that the partitions “enhance our health and safety measures” and provide “a reassuring level of protection for our staff and clients.” Gary Fuller, sales manager with Custom Consoles, adds that the screens work in conjunction with mandatory temperature checks, UVC cleaning, one-way pedestrian routes and operating protocols to minimize any risk of infection as much as possible.

“The key change caused by the pandemic itself was that broadcasters realized they needed to create the safest possible working environment for their staff,” Fuller said. “BBC Studioworks was the first to approach us and we were able to respond very quickly with a design that we now offer as the Operator Safety Screen. Demand has proved very high and we have sold in excess of 350 since we started producing them in March.”

COMFORT AND PRODUCTIVITY

Because home working is, by its very nature, a more solitary pursuit, there is no need for partitions or screens; but replicating a proper working environment away from a facility has been crucial in ensuring comfort and productivity during the various stages of lockdown. As soon as isolation rules were introduced—and in some cases, before—broadcasters and facility owners instructed editors, sound designers, graders and other creative-technical staff to work from their homes as much as possible.

Forecast Consoles has a history of designing desks for remote working, having started out catering for the home music recording studio boom of the 1970s.

“We were already designing home working furniture anyway,” Haberman said, “but now people are going for shrunken-down versions of studio consoles, only for the home rather than an edit suite. It’s what companies would be putting into a studio any way, only 4-feet wide and 2-feet deep instead of 8-feet wide and 3-feet deep.”

Haberman says Forecast is offering a range of sizes and shapes to fit people’s homes and the space available. “Editors who live in non-metropolitan areas [in bigger houses] are getting fuller size desks,” he explains. “We’re also selling additional support arms, which allow people to mount monitors on the wall rather than take up space with a floor or desk stand.”

As much as, Haberman observes, “home working is becoming a thing,” there is still a need for some degree of communal working to allow staff to ask for advice or highlight problems without having to book a Zoom session.

TBC’s Hahn agrees, saying that “people still have to go to work to do high-end things,” such as a full drama or theatrical sound mix.

“The broadcasters and facility owners still want to keep the density low, having designated areas and labelling for different operators,” he said. “We’ve also been asked about walls to create one-way corridors and partitions that light up. They’re all things people haven’t needed before but they are thinking about them now.”

Which is a move on from thinking about desks or partitioning walls as merely something to place your coffee mug or hang your coat.

LEIGHTON BUZZARD, U.K.—Custom Consoles has added a new feature to its range of technical control furniture specifically meant to help protect against the spread of COVID-19, an Operator Safety Screen.

The Operator Safety Screen is designed to reduce the risk of airborne infection or direct physical contact between control personnel, but without restricting their forward or side view of monitor displays. The screen was designed to fit with Custom Consoles’ Module-R series, but fits all other desks in their product portfolio, as well as other furniture companies, Custom Consoles said.

Each screen has a birch plywood main frame with rigid low-profile floor supports. A transparent polycarbonate panel is bonded into the upper section of each frame to provide a clear view. There are also handgrips in each frame for relocation.

The Operator Safety Screen is now available. For more information, visit www.customconsoles.co.uk.  

COVENTRY, ENGLAND—As part of its new television studio gallery, Coventry University has chosen Custom Consoles’ to supply technical furniture. This will include Custom Consoles’ Module-R, MDesks and MediaPosts.

The Module-R control desks are 5.7-meter wide rectangular desks that feature camera control, lighting control, vision mixer/director, PA, audio mixing, teleprompt and graphic effects, including chroma-key and clip playout. Five 24-inch computer monitor displays are located behind the main work surface. The desks can be customized to be configured to meet the university’s specific needs.

The school received three MDesks to be positioned as a rear-row running parallel to the Module-R desks. Each MDesk is 1.8-meters wide. The desks feature cable management ducts with optional CPU holders and LCD monitor arms. It also features an optional height adjuster.

Coventry also added two MediaPost mounts, featuring a linking crossbar that supports two 50-inch LCD displays and two 8-inch loudspeakers. There are two additional MediaPosts with 47-inch transflective displays.

LEIGHTON BUZZARD, ENGLAND—Custom Consoles is becoming a household name in U.K. universities, as a number of schools have recently added a variety of the company's studio console desks and monitor display walls.

Module-R Lite desks at University of Sheffield

One such example is the University of Sheffield’s Department of Journalism Studies. The department uses the desks as part of a production suite that includes a multi-camera HDTV studio, voiceover booths and a radio studio. A large Module-R production desk, MDesks and MediaPosts monitor wallare also being installed in a television studio gallery at an unspecified U.K. Midlands university campus. A suite of technical furniture was also provided to Southampton University.

Custom Consoles, located in Leighton Buzzard, England, is a manufacturer of modular broadcast, process-control and security furniture.

HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND—With the recent completion of Custom Consoles new lighting control desk and Media Wall monitor displays, the company has announced that they will be added to the Elstree studios of BBC Studios and Post Production.

Module-R desk and Media Wall monitors

The new lighting desk is based on Custom Consoles’ Module-R series and designed to handle production camera control units and auxiliary equipment panels. The desk can also be operated by two operators simultaneously. A free-standing lighting control panel sits at the left end of the desk, adjacent to a supplementary desk.

The desk faces the 2.5-meter wide Media Wall that supports two 55-inch curved HD OLED displays. The Media Wall features three extendable Sony OLED HD picture monitors, with a fourth located at the top right of the desk. The studio has a second Media Wall located in an adjacent production control room.

Custom Consoles is a manufacturer of modular broadcast, process-control and security furniture with its headquarters in Bedfordshire, England.