Sports media services provider deltatre approached Glensound for a system that could handle up to 14 match commentaries with up to two commentators per programme output.
A single engineer needed to control all programmes from a central location via remote control. This was an off-tube application, with all 14 sound booths adjacent. As a solution, Glensound provided custom versions of the dCU3 commentators units for the 14 commentary areas.
These carry the digital audio commentary and talkback circuits, via CAT6, to an adjacent technical area that accommodates all fourteen of the 1U 19″ dCCU commentary control units. These are all linked, sharing monitoring and talkback circuits. A single engineer resides in an adjacent control room where he mixes stereo international sound with the commentary for each individual match. This was the interesting challenge for Glensound, as deltatre required remote control of all commentary systems from this one location.
The GDC-6432 dCCU can be remote controlled via a Java applet that runs from within any web browser simply by pointing it at the dCCUs IP address. The single engineer control was achieved by redesigning the Java remote control applet to be narrower than the standard application. deltatre did not require the complete functionality of the system, so the remote software could be trimmed down to the functions required.
This allowed 5 individual instances of the remote software to run side by side at a screen resolution of 1600×1200. Using three screens, a single engineer is then able to monitor all 14 programme feeds at once, adjust the commentators’ mic input levels, and talkback to each commentator individually, or all together. At the same time, the engineer can adjust the on screen faders for the output mix of commentary and stereo international sound for each individual programme.
“A key consideration in our system design was to create a highly flexible and scalable commentary system. Through the CAT6 cabling, remote software interface, and the internal 64×32 digital router, the GDC-6432 system has allowed us to meet all our objectives,” said deltatre UK’s Head of Operations, Tomas Robertsson. “Overall, we are very happy with the system. We have also been very impressed with Glensound’s ability and willingness to customise their solution to meet our needs.”
