Finnish broadcaster MTV adopted a hybrid IP-SDI workflow at its new Helsinki studio, which went live at the end of last year.
Designed and operated by NEP Finland, the technical infrastructure relies on a SMPTE ST 2110 IP network under the control of NEP’s Total Facility Control (TFC), which provides a single touchpoint to configure, provision, monitor and control the network at the new 1080p HD facility.
The facility, just a few kilometres from the site the broadcaster occupied for more than 50 years, has three studio floors—one dedicated to MTV news and other daily programming, another for sports and reality show production and a third that’s used to produce a 24/7 online channel.
Several production control rooms are available, including those used for news and sports show production as well as one dedicated to the smaller online channel studio. Two multipurpose rooms where commentary can be added to shows are also used for production control as is a standalone control room not connected to any studio, says Henrik Lobbas, technical service manager at NEP Finland.
While primarily an ST 2110 facility, it was necessary to deploy some SDI technologies and workflows to meet MTV’s production needs, he says.
Technology from EVS, Octopus and Ross Video, including Ross camera robotics, OverDrive control room automation and graphics, play major roles in the production of MTV content.
ST 2110 was particularly attractive to NEP Finland and MTV because of the flexibility it offers. “We can easily move resources from one studio to another,” says Lobbas. “For example, there are times when our news needs to be controlled from the sports studio to accommodate the complexity of specific news presentations.”
“The news control room is small, and we run OverDrive. You can easily manage newscasts with only a few people in that control room. But when we have elections and other big news events, we need more hands on deck. In those situations, we can use the bigger control room on the sports floor and still maintain the [sports] studio floor while controlling election coverage production.”
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