Facility House on the road in the Netherlands with new eight-camera OBV 6 HD truck

Dutch broadcast specialist Facility House has extended its fleet of mobile production units with the new HD-capable OBV 6. Built according to the latest technical standards and meeting stringent environmental standards, OBV 6 supports up to eight HD cameras. The truck is suited for medium to large productions such as entertainment and talk shows as well as sport broadcasts – both in standard and high definition.

“In the Netherlands, more and more TV programmes are changing from SD to HD,” said Jan de Pijper, owner and vision engineer at Facility House. “For us, it was therefore important to build not only a truck that is HD-capable, but also to have this completed by the beginning of the new season.”

Based on experience gained, Facility House wanted a new truck that would have the same look and feel as the flagship OBV 5. Jan de Pijper: “This ensures a maximum flexibility in use for our customers and for us. Additionally, customers and technicians are familiar with both the set-up and functions of the truck.”

As in its predecessor, Facility House again relied on an intercom system from RTS for OBV 6. The centerpiece of the OB truck’s communication system is a Cronus 40×40 matrix consisting of two Cronus frames, which act as one matrix. The Cronus frames are connected via coax cable and share hardware in different locations. Installed into the Cronus frames are five RTS Cronus AIO 8-Port Analog I/O cards as well as five AIO MDR back cards.

“The RTS Cronus intercom is a modular, 32-port digital matrix intercom in 2U format capable of holding up to four AIO analogue or RVON-C VoIP cards with eight ports each”, said Nico Lewis, senior sales manager RTS Intercoms. “In fact, by utilising a DSP architecture, up to four Cronus frames can be combined to create a matrix capable of supporting up to 128 users.”