Cerebrum, Axon Digital Design’s customisable control and monitoring system,
played a significant part in helping CTV Outside Broadcast deliver a much smoother
service to its broadcast customers during this year’s Open Golf Championship in St.
Andrew’s, Scotland. For the second year running, CTV was responsible for live
mobile production services for both IMG Media/ESPN and The Golf Channel. To meet
the demands for wider coverage, the team drew on lessons learnt in 2014 to
improve the workflow and established Cerebrum as the nerve centre for routing
control for this year’s event.
Hamish Greig, CTV OB’s technical director, says, “Due to the scale of this production
and the increased number of sources and destinations, particularly on the ESPN
side, we needed to simplify the operation and make it more manageable. We
worked hard to improve the flow of information on the technical front, and brought
Axon’s Cerebrum into the heart of the workflow to support us. It’s perfectly suited
to this complex production environment and gave us much smoother control over
elements such as tally, UMD and cameras. It truly was the nerve centre of the
production.’
Live broadcasts, especially complex productions that involve a fleet of Outside
Broadcast vehicles, benefit hugely from an ‘always on’ control and monitoring
system that can deliver comprehensive system management in an easy and
operator-friendly way. By linking together all the main broadcast equipment from
major manufacturers, Cerebrum’s advanced functionality and broad range of
features simplifies multi device control onto one easy-to-use interface. It supports a
wide range of devices including routers, production switchers, servers, audio desks,
camera control units, receiver decoders, multiviewers and waveform monitors –
using either Simple Network Management Protocol or third party protocols.
CTV has equipped two of its OB trucks with Cerebrum and both of these vehicles
were integral to the production of the championship at St Andrew’s. “Primarily, we
used Cerebrum for tally, UMD and multi-viewer control and monitoring, remote
colour balance and the control of both the bunker cameras and the Panasonic pan
and tilt cameras,” Greig explains. “In total, the system supported 80 external
sources, each individually pre-set on the panel. This meant that just one operator
was able to manage set-ups, signal routes, QC, tally and multi viewers in a very
smooth and efficient way. Cerebrum enabled our engineer to achieve tasks in
minutes that previously would have taken hours to complete – that’s impressive.”
Adrian Richmond, Axon’s director of sales UK and Africa, says CTV OB is just one of
a number of broadcast companies that are realising the benefits that Cerebrum can
bring to their productions. “The Open is a great example of how Cerebrum can
make light work of large, complex events by integrating seamlessly with other
technology, providing reliable, scalable and flexible control and monitoring,
simplifying workflow and significantly reducing the workload,” he says.
Cerebrum’s recent installations including Indonesia’s 24-hour news channel Metro TV
and News UK, which has installed Cerebrum in its state-of-the-art broadcast
facilities in London. Now that the Open is over for another year, CTV will be
deploying Cerebrum with its OB3 to deliver coverage of the Barclays Premier
League football season for BBC’s The Match of the Day.
