Alfacam installs TSL audio monitors for 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup

TSL Professional Products Group provided its PAM1-3G8 professional audio monitors to Alfacam, the Belgium-based provider of TV facilities and services, for coverage of the FIFA Confederations Cup, which took place June 14-28 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The sale enabled Alfacam to fully equip a complete outside broadcast system in multiple racks that were wired in Belgium, disassembled and shipped to South Africa, and reassembled at Standard Bank Arena, in Ellis Park, Johannesburg, for the Confederations Cup event.

TSL’s PAM1-3G8s were installed at four crucial control positions within Alfacam’s system to monitor the video and meter multiple audio channels of embedded, AES and analog audio signals.

According to Alfacam head of audio engineering Jean-Philippe Ovaert, “We had to comply with a detailed list of technical features, and the PAM1-3G8 met all of those requirements, but with even greater possibilities. Because this deployment is seen as a trial run for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, we wanted to ensure that our audio monitoring technology would include Dolby decoding and measurement as well as metadata control. The PAM1-3G8 offers all of these features as well as the ability to see the signal that it is measuring, which is extremely helpful when you have a lot of signals to control.”

“The compact dimensions of the PAM1-3G8 were also quite important, as these systems have to be integrated in desks where rack space is very restricted,” he said. “It also has unique features such as high resolution, high visibility displays of bar graph and metadata values, all with low power consumption. Its convenient preset buttons also mean that we can program three setups for control positions because there is not always time to go into menus. That’s a big advantage in fast-paced environments.”

The PAM1-3G8 is one of the first rack-mount monitoring units to feature the flexibility of OLED displays for data and metering. TSL’s Precision Audio Monitor range includes dual 3Ghz HD/SDI video inputs, Dolby D/E decoding plus a range of advanced features.