BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA — In preparation for the transition to digital transmission, RCN-TV, one of Colombia’s first and largest private television channels, recently completed an upgrade to its audio and video equipment in the master control, news and post-production studios at its Bogotá station. With large distances and the need for equipment to transmit both SD and HD signals, RCN-TV selected Gepco cables as part of its interconnect solution.
Best known for its production of "Yo Soy Betty la Fea" which has received the highest viewing records of any telenovela as well as its comprehensive news network, RCN-TV’s Bogotá facility has multiple sound stages which produce over 12 hours of programming on a daily basis. To keep the broadcast quality at the level that its viewers are accustomed to, RCN-TV installed some of the top audio and video equipment. To ensure that the upgrade would be able to accommodate SD digital transmission now and HD transmission in the future, it required interconnects that were able to accommodate both.
“As is the case with RCN-TV, most current broadcast upgrades need to offer the ability to transmit both in SD and HD,” says Carlos Fernandez, owner of SEEL, the systems integrator who handled the upgrade at RCN. “In addition to being well-constructed, Gepco cables have the bandwidth to handle both SD and HD signals, so the station will not need to lay new cable when the switch to HD occurs.”
The upgrade at RCN-TV incorporates Gepco’s HDC920 SMPTE 311M hybrid fiber cable for high-definition video cameras, LVT61859 extra-flexible triaxial camera cable, VSD2001 high-definition coax cable, VPM2000 high-definition coax cable, 61801EZ single-pair audio cable and MP1201 quad-star microphone cables.
Another major obstacle during the RCN-TV upgrade was distance. But as Fernandez explains, Gepco’s cables were up for the challenge. “The RCN station has several different facilities that needed to be connected via cable with some of the runs reaching 500 feet long,” explains Fernandez. “Due to their precision construction, the Gepco cables were able to provide superior transmission of both audio and video over these long distances.”
