Over 300 Crystal Vision boards used for Commonwealth Games TV coverage
Systems integrator Dega Broadcast Systems selected Crystal Vision to supply 343 interface boards including distribution amplifiers, synchronisers, up/down/cross converters, video delays and embedders, for the BBC’s UK coverage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow, Scotland. Supplying the majority of the interface equipment, the boards were all used for the television coverage of the games between July 23 and August 4 2014.
Dega chose Crystal Vision to provide the interface boards due to the variety of product functionality offered and the technical support. The order helped contribute towards the infrastructure for the BBC production facilities in Glasgow for the coverage of the games.
A total of 41 SYNNER 310 video synchronisers were used. The majority of these were used as line synchronisers to ensure clean switching of the multiple lines that were being fed back to BBC Headquarters in Salford and London.
Six Up-Down-A 3G up/down/cross converters were used as utility converters wrapped around station routing. The combined up/down/cross converters work with 3Gb/s, HD and SD and can perform two different conversions simultaneously and provide the picture quality that broadcasters standardise on.
Also within the order were 17 ViViD 3G video delays providing variable video delay designed to match delays elsewhere in the system. 11 TANDEM 310 embedders and de-embedders were included to de-embed external feeds in and around the studios.
A total of 268 distribution amplifiers were ordered. They were made up of 136 3GDA105N, 106 3GDA105C, seven 3GDA111N and three 3GDA111C digital video distribution amplifiers, ten VDA110M HD broadcast analogue video distribution amplifiers, three DADA208N dual digital audio distribution amplifiers and one AADA416FM analogue audio distribution amplifier. They have all been implemented for the general distribution of signals.
Finally, two DACA214 24 bit dual AES digital to analogue audio converters made up the order to help convert audio from digital to analogue.
The project took ten months to prepare for and the games coverage lasted two weeks. The equipment supplied all went towards television coverage of the games on BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3 and 15 interactive red button feeds. All the boards were set up using Statesman Lite – Crystal Vision’s free PC control software and boards were located at BBC Scotland’s Pacific Quay Studios, the international broadcast centre and at the BBC remote studio for anchoring the coverage.