Basque broadcaster ETB installs new digital comms matrix in Donosti-San Sebastián

Basque broadcaster Euskal Irrati Telebista (ETB) has deployed a Riedel Artist digital matrix intercom system within its primary production centre in Miramón (Donosti-San Sebastián). Supplied and integrated by Madrid-based Riedel reseller Crosspoint, the Artist solution supports intercom communications throughout the Miramón facility according to the different requirements of various productions, as well as VoIP communications with ETB headquarters in Bilbao.

“We evaluated a variety of solutions and integrators, and we found that with Riedel’s Artist system, Crosspoint was positioned to offer us the greatest benefit and highest quality,” said Juan Carlos Loroño, head of ETB’s production centers. “Since we put the Artist system into operation, we’ve been very pleased with its capabilities and its impact on our day-to-day work in Miramón.”

The Artist solution at ETB’s Miramón production centre provides a distributed, decentralized architecture for communications. The 160 x 160-port Riedel intercom system is composed of Artist 128 and Artist 32 mainframes with 56 ports configured for control panels, 80 ports for analogue four-wire, eight ports for VoIP usage, and eight ports for a party line system. The entire system ensures AES3/EBU audio quality, with level controls at each individual crosspoint, nonblocking connections, and redundant power supplies and controllers.

The Artist units are complemented by 46 of Riedel’s 2000 LCD Series control panels, one CCP-1116 commentary control panel, 10 wired belt packs, and various VoIP multiplexers. For sporting events that originate in Miramón, the commentator panel supports two commentators working in the same language, or multiple scenarios in which two languages must be accommodated.

“The ability to change the configuration of one studio production while not affecting the configuration of another studio production is very important,” said Juan Olalde, technical coordinator of the ETB production centre in Miramón. “This flexibility lets us perform the multiple simultaneous changes needed in the daily preparation of a programme and save them in partial files that are organised by the type of production, personnel available, or operating model.”