MADISON, WI—Rush Media produces live sports broadcasts as both a packager and truck provider for numerous regional and national networks, including Fox, CBS, NBCSN and ATTSN to name a few. We recently embarked on a complete fleet upgrade, and were looking for a high-quality console with a small footprint. Calrec Audio’s Brio36 was a viable choice because of its size, reliability and coverage with the Hydra2 network.
We purchased our first Brio for a national sports package and have since ordered five more consoles for our six new custom built, 40-foot mobile units with expanding sides. Each truck includes eight camera control units, two 8-channel replay servers, two graphics generators, 36-input switcher, 48-port communication frame and a main truck router with full audio capabilities. The Brio36 is the perfect fit to bring all these elements together.
Rush Media offers a smaller, cost-effective alternative to the full budget, larger footprint mobile units. We needed an audio console that could deliver the quality networks were accustomed to and be familiar to the freelancers that would be using it. We found that the Brio can do both, with no other console at this price point coming close.
Many factors came into play when selecting a console. As with any mobile unit, size is limited. The Brio36 provides 36 dual layer faders and by using a Hydra2 expansion card, we were able to double the size of the console’s I/O. Utilizing MADI in and out of the truck router, left us with more than enough paths and fit nicely in the space available.
The Brio36 has many functions that I’ve used in the past with larger Calrec consoles. With high frame rate cameras being a standard complement on our trucks, delay on every input and output is a must. GPI, together with Auto Fader, has become very useful with the Vizrt graphics generator, and handheld cameras in the field. The Hydra2 network has made it easy to expand the I/O and network multiple desks together.
Our newest mobile unit is being used for all home and away broadcasts for a major league soccer team. The home broadcasts require us to send multiple transmission feeds with unique audio assignments, as well as provide the visiting team separate field FX microphones to be used for their broadcasts. The combination of extra I/O provided by the Br.IO wallbox and MADI to our truck router makes it easy for the operator to provide feeds. The I/O routing section on the Brio is very user friendly and no coordination is needed with the mobile unit engineer. We are so pleased with the performance of the Brio36’s and see no reason to look elsewhere.
We plan to add more mobile units to our fleet next year and additional Calrec audio consoles will be included in this expansion.
Rusty Cummins has worked in the broadcast industry since 2005, joining Rush Media full time in 2013. He can be reached atrustycummins@rushmediaco.com.
For more information, please visitwww.calrec.com or call 661-877-9775.
