Estonian public broadcaster ERR went live with a new Virtual Studio Manager (VSM) system in its OB truck, covering the UEFA qualifying match between Estonia and England.
As host broadcaster almost all cameras went through ERR for the sporting event. Using VSM the broadcaster made full use of its existing infrastructure facilitating for its current workflows and offering new flexibility.
The installation used a combination of LSB’s LCD button panels (LBP Series) alongside existing Grass Valley CP panels. This was designed to give ERR greater flexibility with the LBP panels while saving costs keeping their existing panels interfacing to VSM. ERR took full advantage of VSM’s available platforms using redundant HP DL320 servers built in a load balancing cluster.
The connected devices consisted of a range of manufacturers including Evertz, Grass Valley, Lawo and Avitech. The core functionality required to control these devices was realised by delivering: Evertz VIP 12 Split Multiviewers system Tally/UMD; Avitech Rainier Cascaded Multiviewer system Tally/UMD; GV Kayak 250 Video Mixer Tally and Aux bus routing and Label Transfer; GV HD SDI Trinix 256×256 Video Router control; Lawo MC256 Audio Mixer/Router with routing and parameter control; and GV LDK connect gateway for Tally eliminating the need for GPIO boxes and cabling.
VSM is a complete user configurable system meaning engineers can manage and prepare configurations both on and off line for productions. Using out of the box logic engineers can load and save production set ups easily, with the aim of reducing both time and efforts onsite.