Company's TM9 TouchMonitor Part of Redesigned 3D/HD-Enabled TVN-Ü2HD
COLOGNE, GERMANY, 1 MARCH, 2011 - RTW, a leading manufacturer and distributor of professional audio metering and control devices for studio recording and radio and TV broadcast applications, today announces the first TouchMonitor installation worldwide. A TM9 featuring a touch-sensitive 9" display was recently installed in the audio-control area of the TVN-Ü2HD 3D-enabled production truck. The TouchMonitor unit has been integrated into a Lawo mc²56 digital console. Shipment of the first units from RTW's new TouchMonitor series started at the end of last year.
Located in Hanover, TVN Mobile Production is one of Germany's leading TV-production companies. It operates a large fleet of HDTV-enabled OB vehicles. The TVN-Ü2HD unit is a large semi-trailer with three side extensions and a total work area of about 70 square meters. Recently, the audio system was entirely replaced to upgrade the truck with HD and 3D capabilities. The core of the new sound area is a Lawo mc²56 featuring an MKII HD core and 288 DSP channels.
"Obviously, the vehicle's new audio area needed to include a state-of-the-art goniometer that would meet current loudness-metering guidelines," says Stephan Thyssen, audio engineer at TVN Mobile Production. "Therefore, a TouchMonitor was the system of choice. The truck did not provide enough space for a standard desktop-based solution but RTW and Lawo together found the ideal solution for both requirements: the two companies integrated the TouchMonitor into the Lawo console interface."
"TVN is a renowned service provider in broadcast. We are really happy to have it as the first TouchMonitor user worldwide," says RTW's managing director Andreas Tweitmann. "RTW made no compromises in designing the TouchMonitor to meet the demands of professional users in broadcast, post-production and studio production."
In December, TVN put the newly designed TVN-Ü2HD into operation for the Telekom Extreme Playgrounds Show in Berlin. This big event, which was organized by MTV, required three sound-control facilities plus live music mixing. Subsequent assignments included the Biathlon World Cup at Ruhpolding (Germany) and Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel, a prime-time entertainment program on German TV.
The RTW TouchMonitor marks the beginning of a new era in visual audio metering. The TM7 and TM9 TouchMonitor versions featuring 7" and 9" touch-sensitive displays, respectively, provide unparalleled flexibility and modularity combined with intuitive control. The software visualizes multiple sources simultaneously. It supports displaying the same signal on multiple instruments in parallel, each with dedicated defaults. All in all, the user views up to 16 analog and/or digital sources at the same time. On the TVN-Ü2HD, RTW installed a TM9 vertically into the console surface. The TouchMonitor software supports both vertical and horizontal operation.
