The move comes as a result of Belgacom Skynet's acquisition of the TV broadcasting rights to the Belgian Jupiler League and the Italian A Series, enabling Belgacom TV to offer viewers the nine Jupiler League matches every weekend, as well as the three best Calcio matches from the Italian A Series. Belgacom also broadcasts to other cable TV and pay-per-view channels.
The installation was handled by Unitecnic, a Spanish audio visual systems integrator specialising in broadcast applications who won the bid issued by Belgacom. The console was supplied to Unitecnic by InnovaSON's Spanish distributor, EarPro.
Project engineer, Israel Esteban, from Unitecnic explained their decision to specify an InnovaSON Sy80: "The main criteria for this application was the capacity to handle a large number of incoming signals simultaneously and broadcast up to twenty stereo channels. The InnovaSON Sy80 offered us everything we required in terms of number of inputs, outputs and faders for signal control, excellent routing facilities, and of course, high quality digital audio. Furthermore, the Sy80 offers excellent value for money for a console of this size and specification."
Audio engineer, Eric Asselberghs, agrees. He explained that Belgacom Net Center control room essentially acts as a huge matrix into which all the live feeds are sent, mixed and then broadcast out to a number of different TV stations including Belgacom TV, VRT (the Flemish public broadcasting network) and RTBf (the French public broadcasting network).
"It's a big operation," admitted Asselberghs. "There is a huge amount to keep track of at any one time, so it is vitally important that the console offers good routing facilities. I must say, I'm particularly pleased with the ease and flexibility of the routing on the Sy80 - I can route anything to anywhere, and also modify the configuration very easily, which is great when we have so many feeds to handle."
(Jim Evans)
