Prominent Belgian broadcaster VMMa has equipped its line centre with nine Bel Digital Audio 7150 digital audio delays to sync the audio from their ISDN codecs with incoming images.
The Bel Digital Audio technology was supplied via the manufacturer’s distributor in Belgium, Apex Audio.
The Bel 7150 can delay stereo audio by up to 10.4 seconds (260 frames PAL, 312 frames NTSC). A total of eight user-defined settings may be stored in memory and recalled locally or remotely via GPIs. The delay time may be changed in increments of samples, milliseconds, fields and frames. Field and frame values can be amended to reflect PAL or NTSC operation, whilst a front panel lock is provided to prevent inadvertent operation.
The delay’s provision of simultaneous analogue and AES outputs allows it to function as an analogue-to-digital or digital-to-analogue converter. The AES output can be synchronised to an external AES reference input, while a bit-accurate mode allows AC3 and Dolby E to be delayed.
Explaining the selection of the Bel delays over the available alternatives, VMMa’s Chris Wolters commented: “It’s all about antenna material and not only about monitoring. We bought this model because it can be set to deliver long delays and has a choice of presets for different delay lengths. The 7150 also provides both AES and analogue outputs, and it is very simple and intuitive to use. The combination of these features plus the hard bypass and the fact we did not need any other effects – just a high quality versatile delay – made the Bel delays the obvious choice for us.”
