On Edwards' recommendation, production company talkbackThames purchased the Light Viper system to cover signal transmission from mic to desk, and for talkback via returns on the latest series of the reality show.
With transmission to ITV1 and ITV2, VSS were looking for a more efficient means of delivering the sound from the studio floor to the control room, and turned to a FiberPlex Light Viper VIS-1832/VIM-1832 fibre-optic snake to create far more effective tie lines over greater distances.
Light Viper's fibre optic system offers immunity to ground loops, RFI, EMI and electromechanical noise, and runs of up to 1 1/4 miles (6,600 feet) can be easily accomplished without signal loss or degradation.
"There are 63 radio mics and a lot of LED lighting creating significant RF, so from a cable point of view it's a hostile environment and some of the signals are hard to keep clean," he said.
"We have some mics at the judges' area, and the cable run from the podium in the middle and back to the wall boxes is not the cleanest. But Light Viper cleaned that up - the short pass to the head end, bypassing the infrastructure, resulting in a much cleaner signal."
The short pass D-Sub cables were made by Kelsey Acoustics - who distribute Light Viper in the UK - in addition to a custom 32/8 break out panel to furnish the feeds to the main studio. The full system includes the compact VIS-1832 32/8 stage box at front of house (accepting 32 XLR or TRS balanced or unbalanced mic/line signals), which connects to a rack unit at the house mix position via lightweight, multi-mode fibre-optic line. All transfers are at 24-bit/96 kHz, and optional optical outs on the stage box allow 'splits' to a monitor mixer or recording/broadcast feeds.
The stage box contains 32 mic pre's with individual three position gain switch, phantom power in groups of eight, individual LED clip indicators, A/D converters and analogue returns. The 1U VIM-1832 is the tail end of the system containing 32 analogue and 32 AES digital outputs (sends) pluseight analogue or digital returns (all on D-sub connectors).
The network was accomplished using multimode fibre terminated on the new Neutrik Optical Con fibre optic connectors.
"Aside from the benefits of using fibre over copper, the Light Viper system is self-contained plug and play system with both a remote and tail end. It operates without the need for a laptop so it's quick to rig," says Edwards.
(Chris Henry)
