LONDON,
United Kingdom — It is a
little over three years since HARMAN’s Studer announced that it had won a major contract from the
BBC to deliver in the region of 85 OnAir 3000 digital audio mixing consoles to
its flagship locations at MediaCityUK, in the north of England, and the second
phase of the rebuilding of the London HQ to create the new W1 Centre.
The
latter is now home for all the BBC's national radio networks, as well as a
focus for the BBC's national and international news operations, bringing the
World Service and the domestic news service together in one venue for the first
time.
The
transformation of the London HQ includes the creation of 140
acoustic spaces for Radio & Music, News and World Service in the new 10-storey-high
West One Phase 2. Three years on, and all facilities have been equipped with
different Studer OnAir 3000 frames—with control surfaces ranging from 6-fader
for simple self-operated broadcasts up
to the largest 36-fader General Purpose studios—with many customised for
specific needs.
The OnAir3000s—all modulo types, mounted into desks
and using standard faders—have been supplied with a mix of SCore and SCore Live
racks.
Nearly
30 of the OnAir 3000s have been installed at the new MediaCityUK broadcast
centre in Manchester, for the Corporation's domestic radio services, such as
BBC 5 Live, where the first 40-fader desks were installed.
The
new West One Phase 2 facility, which is home to over 5,000 personnel, offers
splendid views over the London skyline, and equally impressive views of the
vast open plan double-atrium newsroom, home to 450 staff alone, from the ground
floor gallery.
In
London, the OnAir 3000s have mainly been deployed in GP and self-op studios. A
typical layout for a GP studio control room would include the OnAir 3000, VCS dira
playout system, BNCS (Broadcast Network Control System) and Delec talkback,
with outside sources locally integrated by the Studer console. Since the OnAir
3000 sits downstream from the Delec this can also provide back-up talkback in
the event of failure. The facility also contains a Broadcast Bionics PhoneBox
system for handling on-air telephone calls and IDS (Intelligent Display System)
for displaying clocks and signal lights and controlling TVs and video monitors.
Many
consoles are supplemented with RTW TM7 TFT meters configured with software to
show electronically the standard BBC PPM ‘moving needle’ ballistics.
Adjacent
to a number of studios are ten journalists’ kiosks known as Voice Points, using OnAir 3000 modules linked to the main
studio control desk. Each is equipped with a Studer Editor Module — an extended three-fader module including a subset of monitoring and talkback functionality and buttons for the assignment. Each one has access to
a Codec, ISDN, VCS dira! machine, etc.
John
Sullivan was the BBC’s lead project manager on both Salford and New
Broadcasting House. He explained that the original vision of the project team
was to make everything identical, for ease of implementation and consistent
workflow, but it was understood that there would need to be variation across
different areas and operating divisions. Having an OnAir 3000 desk in every
facility, albeit configured differently, does allow a studio manager or less
technical operator to have familiarity wherever they are and make the desk work
in seconds.
The audio integration of a total of 80 studios at
West One Phase 2 and BBC North was carried out by IPE who bid successfully for
the contract under an EU competitive tender process.
As for any large scale BBC project, the in-house
team and user divisions wrote a stringent specification against which suppliers
were to tender. For example, the number of clean feeds supported and extent of
configurability were key, both of which were very BBC specific given the range
of studios and workflows the consoles were required to support. There were
other requirements, particular to the BBC, that had to be accommodated either
‘out of the box’ or by changes to the console software.
Other criteria included the requisite number of
channels, the amount of processing power available, scalability and whether the
same desk type could be used in different locations. Price was, of course, a
consideration as the BBC must be able to demonstrate the best value for money
for the licence payers.
Finally, in the self-op studios (such as World
Service, where AKG C414 microphones are also deployed) the
console needed to permit over-control from an adjacent studio, which the OnAir
3000 desks were able to simply achieve with MADI links between two DSP cores.
The project team learned a lot during the initial
deployment in Salford. The teams knew that if they could make Radio Five Live’s
big GP studios work, within the short time frame available, then the studios
would be able to meet all the requirements for the West 1 workflows. In fact,
the two 40-fader OnAir 3000 desks utilised in Salford are the largest available
OnAir 3000 format.
With the BBC’s specialist project manager, Andy
Laughton, providing the liaison between Studer and IPE, factory testing was
carried out on site, along with acceptance testing and operational proving, in
time for the MediaCityUK studios to go live in September 2011, while down in
London World Service went live in January 2012.
Since then there have been other high profile
transitions, most notably the major migration of the popular Radio 1, from
Yalding House to the 8th floor at Broadcasting House. Here guest DJs are
equipped with a full CDJ rig and turntables, while a Soundcraft Ghost has been
provided for mixing visiting bands performing in the Radio 1 Live Lounge.
All Studer consoles were configured on site and
issues concerning workflow resolved during the BBC’s operational proving phase.
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