Looking to tout its ability to produce sports telecasts that include full surround-sound audio elements, Crosscreek Television Productions (in Alabaster, AL) has installed a 64-fader Sigma with Bluefin audio console from Calrec in its new HD remote broadcast truck, Voyager 9.
The 53ft trailer with a 51ft by 5ft expansion is now on the road covering a variety of sports events, including professional wrestling, college football and motor sports. The Sigma, which incorporates Calrec's Bluefin high-density signal processing (HDSP), is the second for Crosscreek, which installed one in its Voyager 8 truck in 2007.
The new Voyager 9 truck features a 3Gb/s infrastructure and is wired for 24 cameras, 14 tape machines and 10 EVS video servers. Beck Associates in Austin, TX, built the new truck.
Butch Mueller, Crosscreek director of engineering, said the advantage of the Sigma is that even freelance operators who have never seen a digital console can walk into the truck and figure it out. That’s important because the company does not use the same crews every time. Mueller also said that the Calrec console attracts new clients.
In designing Voyager 9, Crosscreek Television wanted to guarantee plenty of space for the people working inside. Calrec worked closely with the Crosscreek team to redesign the console so it could be custom-mounted on a tabletop, affording as much as 15 additional rack units of space underneath.
The Sigma console is based on Calrec’s Alpha operating platform. It includes 320 internal channel-processing paths, which can be configured for up to 52 full 5.1 surround channels.
