Since first being included in the Manchester 2002 Games, table tennis has invited fierce competition. Sharing the Scotstoun Arena with the competition's squash events, the table tennis matches took place in two 2,500 seat 'show courts', and a further eight match courts. The broadcast of these matches was in the hands of Arena Television, with Audio Guarantee Engineer David Harnett taking charge of the company's OB14 mobile - and its Lawo digital mixing and routing systems.
Harnett joined Arena TV around three years ago having previously worked on Lawo consoles, which he regards as 'very intuitive'. OB14, meanwhile, has come to sports broadcasting from use on Arena TV's music events.
The Lawo console in OB14 was used as a hub to provide central routing for both of the 'show' tables - dubbed Table Tennis 1 and Table Tennis 2 - with one DSP core used as central router for both. Specifically, there was a 56-fader Lawo mc266 MkII console serving Table 1, with a Studer Vista digital console hooked up as a submixer to cover the action on Table 2 - both tables being in use simultaneously and requiring their own audio feeds.
(Jim Evans)
