Custom Consoles announces the completion and installation of eight control desks and a large MediaWall monitor display support system for NEP Media Solutions BV. Located in the master control room at the company's studios in Hilversum's Media Park, the desks are configured in front and rear rows for use by up to six and four operators respectively.

"The desks are similar in style and colour scheme to a suite we produced in early 2018 for another NEP television studio facility," says Custom Consoles' Sales Manager Gary Fuller. "The forward desk centres on a dual-operator bridge with a total of eight forward-sloping 4U equipment pods. This is constructed as a rectangular unit with space for two operators. Left and right of the bridge are two units of identical design to the bridge but angled to match the curve of the 13.9 metre wide six-frame MediaWall."

"The MediaWall itself is one of the largest we have produced to date, each of the six frames accommodating four 55 inch UHD displays to create an 11-wide by two-high screen array with two additional pairs of 32 inch screens positioned to form vertical columns immediately left and right of the front-centre bridge desk. The result is a very elegant solution which can justifiably be termed state-of-the-art."

Blackmagic Design today announced that Grid VFX relied on Fusion Studio throughout its in house compositing pipeline to deliver newly released children’s animated feature, Latte & The Magic Waterstone.

Directed by Regina Welker, the team’s latest project ‘Latte & The Magic Waterstone’ involved the completion of more than 1,200 visual effects shots, including the complex compositing of background and foreground plates and CG render layers for 3D assets, lighting, procedural effects, and more.

“Latte was a huge project for us. It’s a feature animation with a limited budget, so we knew we had to work as efficiently as possible,” begins compositing supervisor at Grid, Laurens Bekaert.

“Fusion’s GPU accelerated render engine was amazing at being able to handle geometry and 3D space compared to alternative compositors. We could add smoke and particles behind our characters and see a good representation of how they would look in 3D instantly, without needing to re render.”

Altered Images, a leading UK supplier of visual communications technology solutions, has chosen Custom Consoles Module-R, M-Desk Technical and custom-designed studio furniture for a newly completed broadcast media training suite at Plymouth Marjon University.

The new resource includes a total of seven desks in an open plan configuration. Located on the former BBC South West villa site in Plymouth, it is equipped with all the facilities required for the university's courses in journalism and broadcast production. These include a four-camera TV studio, a TV news room and TV production gallery, a radio news room, radio studio and central apparatus room.

"The design brief we were given was to create a fully professional radio and TV production environment including latest-generation Dante IP networking", says Altered Images' Media and Broadcast Solutions Director Russell Butcher. "Custom Consoles desks are very widely used throughout the broadcast media industry so will be met by many students as they progress into their careers. The desks and equipment bays look good, are ergonomically comfortable and efficient, and are very long-lasting."

Brightline, a leading manufacturer of energy efficient lighting systems, now offers technical support through Zoom for its resellers, integrators, and clients. The cloud-based videoconferencing system allows Brightline to program light fixtures remotely, re-focus, visually diagnose potential issues, and perform other troubleshooting. 

“Zoom service is ideal for time-critical issues,” explained Kathy Katz, Brightline managing partner. “You don’t have to struggle through a phone call without visuals or schedule onsite service. Zoom gives us ‘eyes’ in the room.”

To request a free Zoom technical call, contact technical support at techservice@brightlines.com.

Custom Consoles announces the completion of Module-R studio control desks and two MediaWall monitor display mounts for Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studios. The desks and display mounts form part of a full broadcast-quality news studio facility designed by UK-based system integrator ATG Danmon.

"We were invited to propose a turnkey solution based on an outline specification provided by the university," explains ATG Danmon Managing Director Russell Peirson-Hagger. "The project coincided with a relocation to new city-centre premises. It comprised a large TV studio and dedicated gallery, a smaller TV studio with its associated gallery, plus a broadcast newsroom. These will be used to train the next generation of television, radio, online and printed-media journalists. Module-R desks and MediaWalls are used in many broadcast facilities in the UK, Europe, MENA and Asia, so were a logical choice given the need to match the functionality and processes of a real broadcast environment. They are robustly constructed, ergonomically efficient for engineering staff and well as operators, and attractively styled. Both product series also gave us the freedom to match the available room dimensions from standard modular elements."

ATG Danmon announces the completion of a broadcast-quality production facility for the London headquarters of That Lot, one of Europe's leading providers of social media content production support. Core of this project is a multi-camera studio plus a fully equipped control room including lighting, vision and audio mixing, routing, recording, monitoring and archiving.

"Working with ATG Danmon, we have been able to create the most flexible possible system for use across our wide range of creative services," comments Ben Forder, Head of Video at That Lot. "The new studio and its control suite enable us to offer our clients versatile resources for creating broadcast-quality content for a wide range of media applications."

"A full-colour back-lit LED cyclorama, which we believe is the first of its kind in Europe, provides sharp chroma-key superimposition onto on any background. Lighting is from a ceiling-mounted rig which can be adjusted to get the exact style of illumination we need for live-streaming or recording sketches, scripted videos, interviews, podcasts, vodcasts and social media photoshoots. That includes 360 degree surround video and audio capture if specified."

KRK Systems, part of the Gibson family of brands, is adding a new family of studio monitors to its latest ROKIT Generation 4 (G4) range, the limited edition ROKIT G4 White Noise. Available in 5-, 7-, and 8-inch bi-amp models, these stylish limited-edition monitors offer the same impressive features as the newly released ROKIT G4s, but with an enticingly different aesthetic. Art and science come together with the new White Noise editions of these professional monitors, taking music and sound creativity to a whole new industry-level.

Providing wide, deep and dynamic listening, along with incredible imaging, KRK’s ROKIT G4 studio monitors have been scientifically re-engineered and re-designed from the ground up. They are ideally suited to the way modern artists work—in all genres and environments. The entire ROKIT G4 range features on-board DSP-driven Graphic EQ with 25 settings to help condition any acoustic environment while offering new levels of versatility in a studio monitor—making them the only monitors in their class with an LCD screen to display DSP-driven EQ settings. The flat setting is great for most environments, but low-, mid- and high-frequency presets can be adjusted to help compensate for common trouble spots in different sound environments. This on-board system works in conjunction with the KRK Audio Tools App, available for free on the Android and iOS stores.

Additionally, all system elements of the ROKIT G4 monitors are cohesively designed and engineered to work perfectly with their advanced drivers made with Kevlar®, efficient Class D power amplifiers and front-firing port, which offers exceptional low-end extension, punch and flexible room-positioning. These features collectively extend accurate and tight bass reproduction and improve audio integrity while minimizing listening fatigue—offering an overall balanced listening experience.

In the two renewed multipurpose control rooms, Director's Cut creates the Finnish national programmes for international sporting events (e.g. football Champions League, ice hockey or tennis). Director's Cut's primary customer is MTV3, Finland's largest private television station.

After the successful implementation, it is now possible to produce up to six Finnish-language programme feeds simultaneously from two multipurpose control rooms with only two producers. One Mainfeed and two Sidefeeds can be produced per control room. Audio processing takes place in a Lawo Powercore. Control is via Lawo VisTool user interfaces and an 8-fader Ruby console for the Mainfeed and via two 4-fader Ruby consoles for the two Sidefeeds.

Broadcast Solutions created the VisTool interfaces especially to meet the individual workflows of Director's Cut. The new facility also includes six commentator booths equipped with Lawo LCUs and 43" Sony monitors.

No matter how old you are, it is always lovely when something excites you enough to feel like a child again – and that is exactly how renowned musician, composer and orchestrator Youki Yamamoto felt the first time he heard PMC monitors in his own studio.

Yamamoto has had a 15 year residence at Pinewood Studios where he creates his own music as well as other compositions for films and computer games. He is also equally at home in Katara Studios, Doha, which is where he first had the idea of investing in a pair of PMC monitors for his own facility.

After doing some research, he chose PMC MB2 monitors with a separate Class A Bryston amp because he felt this was the most versatile system for any kind of music. “I get all the lovely clarity and detail that PMC delivers, but I don’t get tired listening all day and the sound is so beautiful that I find it hard to leave the studio,” he says. “I just want to stay in there and keep working. It is almost like being with your first ever girlfriend!”

Videosys Broadcast, a leading supplier of quality camera control systems, RF links and camera backs to outside broadcast providers has announced that it has supplied two DTC 4K AEON-CC digital video transmitter systems to Cloudbass, a leading provider of broadcast solutions.

Specifically designed for high-quality wireless camera applications the AEON-CC uses DTC’s next-generation HEVC encoder technology facilitating UHD images. The system consists of one single 4K transmitter unit from DTC coupled with a built-in Videosys Camera Control system. The advantage of the AEON CC with Videosys’ camera control receiver built into the unit is a reduction in the equipment count and the complexities that come when managing 4K transmission and camera control simultaneously.

Cloudbass have been successfully using the systems on UHD, 3G and HD setups across a variety of live Outside Broadcasts, including both SKY Boxing and BT Speedway in UHD, on the British Touring Cars for ITV Sport, and The Lord Mayor’s Show for BBC Events.