The Harris Broadcast Platinum Router integrates multiviewer capability with routing functionality, saving space and weight in TNDV’s Aspiration truck.
NASHFILLE—A big consideration in buying a new router today is its ability to help you grow. This especially applies to mobile production trucks, where the technical infrastructure is continually evolving. TNDV’s mobile production fleet includes five trucks, and our largest vehicles feature Harris Broadcast Platinum routers. We installed our first Platinum systems two years ago on our largest truck, Aspiration, and recently installed another Platinum on our 40- foot Inspiration truck.
Real estate is at a premium in any mobile production truck and this makes choosing a router that will fit into available space very important, and is the key reason that the Platinum is in our highest profile trucks. The system’s built-in multiviewer functionality is also a big space saver.
DESIGNED FOR EXPANDABILITY
The Platinum’s layout simplifies expansion, with its design providing one side full of input slots and another side full of output slots. This makes it simple to integrate new multiviewer modules as signal monitoring needs grow. The Platinum’s rear connector panel also simplifies I/O expansion. To prepare for future growth, we prepurchased back planes for additional I/O capability and wired them to our patch bays. This gives us plenty of slots to grow eight inputs and outputs at a time, and minimizes time spent in upgrading.
The Platinum also helps manage truck setups by letting us establish a series of defaults for different camera counts. The system allows us to easily recall camera count settings and make modifications to customize each production, especially the number of monitors and producer stations we’re feeding.
Occasionally, there’s a requirement to use both Aspiration and Inspiration trucks for very large productions. The Platinum system allows us to create one very large routing architecture to support all inhouse and external broadcast and Webcast signals. Tying the systems together gives us the flexibility we need without having to spend more money.
Two recent examples include Chick-fil-A Leadercast, a corporate leadership event; and Passion 2013, a multiday worship event. Both were broadcast and/or streamed globally, with the Inspiration crew switching external feeds. The Platinum design brought the two routers together through a simple network connection.
NO CONTROL ISSUES HERE
We’re big fans of the Platinum router panels, as they allow us to control them in many ways—via a network connection with an IP address assigned to each panel or with Platinum’s XY protocol for long distance control runs. In the later case we just connect a data cable back to the truck and this lets us operate hundreds of feet further than with a network connection. This lets a lighting director or producer at the front of the house change monitor outputs on the fly without having to ask someone in the truck to make the change.
The Platinum brings other benefits too, including the ability to control what audio is embedded, or de-embedded, as well as being able to split stereo signals into two discrete left and right paths. And last but not least, the router’s space-saving, energy-efficient design puts out far less heat than legacy routers, helping us to keep our trucks cool.
Nic Dugger is owner and president of TNDV. He may be contacted atnic@tndv.com.
For additional information, contact Harris North American Sales at800-231- 9673 or visitwww.harrisbroadcast.com.
