CBC centralizes
presentation, branding
and control
This past fall, CBC/Radio-Canada’s French-language TV network began consolidating presentation operations for its 10 regional stations and one specialty station. This project involved moving automation, playout, master control and channel branding for all of the network’s regional stations to its headquarters in Montreal. The system was designed to provide expansion capacity for up to nine additional channels and to bring greater control and consistency to the network’s facilities.
A key element in the design of the project is the close integration of Encoda station automation with the master control switching and channel branding equipment from Miranda and VertigoXmedia.
This system allows three operators at the network to control as many as 10 channels. It is based on a combination of Miranda’s Imagestore branding processor and VertigoXmedia’s CG. Automation normally carries out control of the master control switching and branding. Operators may also use a VertigoXmedia touchcontrol panel to manually address signal routing, switching and branding operations for any individual TV program channel.
New branding equipment will make noticeable changes to on-air presentation over the coming months, with more added channel branding and program junctions. The system will enable the use of graphics, character generation, animations, 3-D DVE effects and multichannel voice-overs.
A Thomson Grass Valley routing switcher feeds sources for the master control area, with Miranda Densité series interfaces providing conversion and distribution. Another major challenge for the network was effective monitoring of the 11 independent channels generated from Montreal, as well as the signals from all of the network’s remote facilities.
Two Miranda Kaleido-K2 dual-head, 32-input multi-image display processors, which output to three Barco rear-projection cubes, perform local video and audio monitoring in the Montreal playout center. Close integration between the processors, the automation and the Omneon Spectrum media servers will allow the operators to monitor the current and next clips via UMDs, along with associated clip timing information. The advanced monitoring wall will also provide monitoring of closed captioning, and extensive video, audio and metadata alarm reporting.
The system is designed to allow close integration with the multi-image display processor system. Alarms generated from remote sites are presented on the main monitoring walls in Montreal and Toronto to further strengthen centralized monitoring.
The current system is equipped for SD playout, but the station plans for HDTV playout in the next months.
Design Team
Radio-Canada Technology Design Team:
Daniel Guévin, mgr.
Philip Kelly and Marc Cavanagh, electronic associates
Érik Gaudin and François Legrand, sys. designers
Bertrand Turgeon, dir., broadcast services
Daniel Langevin, supervising tech.
Pierre Bourdeau, Montreal MC supervisor
Gaétan Touchette, master tech.
Communication DIDCOM:
Daniel Despa, consulting eng.
Applied Electronics:
Yvon Cardinal, project mgmt.
Serge Desrosiers, service eng.
Equipment List
Miranda: Imagestore automation, Densité converters and DAs, iControl control and monitoring, Kaleido-K2 display processors
Barco rear-projection cubes
Omneon Spectrum media servers
VertigoXmedia: graphics auto., Vertigo CG
Thomson Grass Valley:
Trinix 256X256 router
Encore control system
Encoda automation
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