Delivering dedicated remote production facilities across a range of live sports for a growing roster of broadcast clients, the Cymru Broadcast Centre (CBC) at Whisper Cymru in Cardiff is focusing on the future with the installation of a 36-fader Argo S console in its flagship PCR 1 control room and a compact Calrec Brio in its PCR 2 gallery.
Owned by global production powerhouse Whisper and managed by Timeline Television, CBC is Wales’s first remote production facility and designed to be one of the most accessible remote production hubs in Europe. Originally built as the remote hub for Channel 4 and More 4’s 2024 Paralympics coverage, the facility covered more than 1400 hours of live sport in its first few weeks. This year it has stepped up its game to cater for a huge variety of live content, including the Women’s World Super League for BBCs One, Two and Red Button coverage, as well as the Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament that saw England win its third world title on 27th September.
According to Head of Technical Operations Stuart Frayne, the decision to install Calrec’s award-winning equipment is a strategic one, supporting both CBC’s current workload as well as the facility’s long-term expansion plans.
“This is a relatively new facility and the technology we have chosen means we can scale accordingly,” he says. “Although we do currently use AES67, we’re essentially a baseband facility, but there is a point where a hybrid or total IP infrastructure could deliver the scalability, we need within a compact footprint. We are currently operating two PCRs, but have potential for expansion and Calrec’s access to all the transport protocols future-proofs us for any future ST2110 implementations.
“All our sound supervisors have been very impressed by the functionality of the Argo, but on the integration side of things it’s also very flexible; it plays nicely with other vendors, and it seamlessly integrates with our EVS Cerebrum as an orchestrator. Having a native IP core, makes things easier when adopting IP workflows.”
The specification and integration of both Calrec consoles were carried out by broadcast technology and service provider Timeline Television, and according to Timeline’s Sound Guarantee Michael Gerrard, there are specific features that made Calrec an especially practical choice; once again, the emphasis is on future flexibility.
“We have had lots of experience using Calrec consoles, so when it came to building a new state-of-the-art facility from the ground up, the IP-native Argo S console seemed the obvious choice to future-proof the facility for future expansion,” says Gerrard.
“We have redundant Impulse1 cores located in separate racks in Cymru’s Central Apparatus Room, and having IO units on the Argo S surface in the sound control room simplifies wiring significantly. Meanwhile, the Calrec Assist remote application provides full remote access to the console to carry out setup and on-the-fly changes, and it also provides the ability to do submixes while the main show is going on.”
On the production side, Gerrard adds that the ability to access full DSP facilities on every bus is also a powerful feature and is especially useful for jobs that require a lot of ISO recording.
“The ability to customise buttons to route to buses also makes punching in channels to ISO very quick and easy in a fast-paced show,” says Gerrard. “Meanwhile, the ability for the surface touchscreens to control and view an external PC output has proved very useful to display digital scripts directly on the surface of the desk rather than relying on hard-to-see laptops off to the side.”
“This installation demonstrates how Calrec’s scalable and flexible solutions help broadcasters deliver the highest-quality content, whilst empowering them to adapt workflows so they can expand their operations as requirements evolve,” says Calrec’s Regional Sales Manager, Anthony Harrison. A combination of Whisper’s creative ambition, Timeline’s technical innovation and Calrec’s future-focused audio infrastructure has enabled CBC to become an industry-leading remote production facility that has one foot firmly in the future.”
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