New England Sports Network (NESN) has expanded its Telecast fiber arsenal to support transmission of all production signals between the network's new HD production center in Watertown, Mass., with Boston studio facilities at Fenway Park and TD Banknorth Garden, and an uplink facility in Needham.
Telecast Fiber Systems' Viper I, Viper II, and Adder modular fiber optic systems allow NESN to use 14 miles of leased dark fiber network from RCN to send all communications between its locations.
"Our decision to embrace dark fiber as our primary transmission medium is due largely to the success of our pre-existing fiber HD-STL links. This new and expanded system gives us a great deal of flexibility, largely because we can set up our Telecast Vipers and put down any signal we want," said Dave DesRochers, chief engineer at NESN.
DesRochers said the Telecast gear operates "reliably in virtually any environment or temperature range."
With its Viper II systems, NESN is able to put three uncompressed HD feeds and a combination of analog and Ethernet feeds, as well as L-Band satellite return monitoring feeds, on redundant RCN fibers. This four-channel and eight-channel optical multiplexing (CWDM) capacity enables the network to use far fewer cross-town fibers for its transmissions, the company said.
NESN has also integrated a new HD-capable Viper I portable "Mussel Shell" into its operations, which allows signals from downtown to connect through the private fiber network all the way back to the new control room for remote production. Telecast also was able to present NESN with a system for off-air monitoring of the network's five channels.
