KOMU-TV8, an NBC affiliate owned by the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO, has purchased Telecast's CopperHead, DiamondBack and Adder video and audio transceivers to build a new campuswide broadcast system to cover the university's news and sports events.
The university used the Telecast equipment with its existing fiber infrastructure to feed high-quality broadcast signals to and from Memorial Stadium during the football season.
KOMU-TV8 wanted a solution flexible enough to handle a wide range of applications on the 12mi strand of single-mode fiber already installed at the university. The broadcast system needed to be portable enough to send multiple camera signals from various venues around campus, including from the football stadium and the new Mizzou arena to the studio for production.
The studio needed to broadcast its processed signals to local viewers and back to a portable system that relays instant replays, locally originated weather forecasts and sports updates to the giant "TigerVision" screens and other closed-captioned monitors in the university’s stadium and arena.
As the basketball season approached, the rack unit that was located at Memorial Stadium was to be moved to the university’s new Mizzou arena. The entire transition from football to basketball coverage took less than 90 minutes. The Mizzou arena, which opened Nov. 4, is wired for nine different fiber-optic camera drops.
KOMU's new system is built around four CopperHeads. These camera-mounted transceivers put all the common camera signals, including bidirectional video, audio and intercom, onto fiber and send them to a central rack area.
From there, the analog video signals are fed to a bidirectional pair of DiamondBack II video multiplexers. Audio and data signals are distributed to Adder 882i audio and intercom multiplexers. An identical DiamondBack II/Adder system is installed in the station's studio, which acts as a centralized control room. Equipping the newsroom with control panels that allow remote operation of the stadium's cameras has made it possible for KOMU to locate more staff members in the studio.
For more information, visit www.sportsvenue-technology.com/contractors/communication/telecast/index.html.
