PGA Tour Productions Tees Up HD With Miranda Kaleido-X

PGA Tour Productions, the Florida-based production company that repackages and retransmits feeds of PGA Tour golf tournaments around the world, has made its first HD production using a Miranda Kaleido-X multi-image display processor.

The new Kaleido-X monitoring system is configured with 48 inputs and feeds six large LCD displays, which have been installed to replace floor-to-ceiling SD monitors. Four panels are used in PGA Tour Productions' main video control room, and one large panel is used in the audio room, and a further panel is in the announce booth.

With the new Kaleido-X system, sources can be repeated multiple times, to multiple displays, in the same way a router operates. As a result, the operators can easily configure sources to display on separate monitors in separate rooms.

"We liked the flexibility and simplicity of the Kaleido-X compared to other multi-viewers, and it represented the best value for money," said David Dukes, director of technical operations at PGA Tour Productions. "We were able to quickly set it up, straight out of the box. We can easily change layouts on the screens by dragging-and-dropping items using a mouse, without the need for an extra PC. What's more, the image quality is excellent, regardless of the number and size of images displayed."

PGA Tour Productions has a very busy schedule, covering PGA Tour Tournaments for 45 weeks per year, and it requires its equipment to provide a high level of robustness. To address this, Kaleido-X has a 7 RU frame with front loading, hot swappable modules and power supplies. All the modules are independent, and there is no single module that can cause the system to fail.

Each output module has its own processor, operating system and external connections. Kaleido-X also offers multiple failover scenarios, an easy upgrade process, and detailed system status and logging. The processor uses a real-time Linux-based operating system, and a copy of the system configuration resides on every card allowing the system to be fully redundant.