IDS from IPE steadily adopted by CNN bureaus

Royston, UK 10 July 2018: Following a successful deployment at CNN London, IPE’s Intelligent Display System (IDS) is steadily being adopted by other regional CNN facilities including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Hong Kong.

CNN’s London bureau wanted to simplify a variety of workflows and decided to use IDS as part of a designated “self-op” area, i.e., a small space where a range of camera, lighting, and audio could be readjusted to suit the requirements of individual presenters.

Technicians at CNN London were aware of IDS as an intelligent display system, but discovered that it was also a highly sophisticated, highly tailorable camera control system that could automate the self-op area processes and make short pieces to camera a totally user-driven exercise.

What CNN London ultimately ended up with was an IDS touch panel system that provides users with a greatly simplified interface that enables anyone to set up the self-op studio in seconds to their chosen, stored, preferences. Even those with next to no technical knowledge can set the system up in minutes.

According to IPE Head of Sales Reuben Such, “Word about the London system soon got around within the CNN community, and before we knew it we were devising IDS systems for other CNN locations, but often for quite different uses. Part of the beauty of IDS is that it is so flexible and easily configured that it can not only provide a wide range of useful information highly specific to the users’ reequipments, but automate a wide range of multiple, often time-consuming tasks, resulting in a greatly improved internal workflow.”

One example cited by Such was CNN Hong Kong, which initially became interested in IDS camera control, but similarly because interested in – and installed – multiple IPE eMU3 power management units for power distribution and monitoring. IDS is linked to CNN Hong Kong’s eMU3’s so users in the engineering room can via an IDS-driven display see an accurate picture of power consumption throughout their facility. They have also bought the camera control element of IDS, which is due for installation soon.

The eMU3 Mark II is IPE’s most intelligent and physically robust power management system and includes an embedded web server for continuous remote control and monitoring. It also includes voltage monitoring in addition to monitoring and displaying electric current measurements, which show at a glance how safe and efficient a system is running.

The CNN London and CNN Hong Kong IDS systems are independent, i.e., not linked. However, there is a link from approximately 25 eMU3’s at CNN Abu Dhabi, where they are also used for power management and monitoring, but are being managed through a server at CNN London. A screen shows all the eMUs and displays their current status of the power system and a separate eMU web page that depicts the entire facility’s overall health.

Such added, “I can say without hesitation that CNN are super happy with their IDS and eMU setup.”

Similarly, there are a number of eMUs at the CNN Dubai facility, which remotely make use of the IDS Remora R5 display processor in Abu Dhabi to keep an eye on power usage.

Such concludes, “The use of IDS displays and power management systems tend to grow organically. Once they make ingress into a broadcast ecosystem, they become systemic and virtually impossible to live without. Fortunately, it’s not something anyone wants to live without once they see what IDS can do.”

IDS will feature on IPE’s Stand 11.D30 at IBC 2018. For more information, visit www.ipe-technologies.com

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About IPE:

IPE was established in 1982, initially as a system integrator primarily involved in the audio world. The company was extremely well known and highly regarded for designing and building radio facilities, be they studios, galleries or full facilities.

However, in 2007, in the course of in-house R&D, IPE found that it could create and develop a more elegant solution to the standard, cumbersome and expensive broadcast clocks and tally units that had been seen in broadcast facilities for decades. From that, IPE’s Information Display System (IDS) was born, a scalable, network-based display and control system designed specifically for the broadcast industry.