Apantac provides VIDI with visual monitoring during major sporting events
VIDI has chosen Apantac Mi-16 Multiviewers for transmission monitoring during the world’s most watched football event this year.
Last year, VIDI, a global service provider of high-quality broadcast transmission solutions and services, installed multiple Apantac’s Mi-16 Multiviewers to support football coverage in Germany. Apantac Multiviewers provide all the visual monitoring of the video transmission between on-site venues and the production centre. All the transmissions are also remotely monitored from the VIDI control center in Darmstadt (near Frankfurt), Germany.
After a successful project, VIDI has once again chosen Apantac Mi-16 Multiviewers for the upcoming international football event this year that will draw millions of viewers. VIDI purchased seventy-two Mi-16 Multiviewer units, which are housed on pre-wired racks at each of the twelve remote on-location stadiums and the International Broadcast Center (IBC).
Each set of three equipment racks is equipped with Video over IP transport equipment using JPEG2000 compression, seven Apantac Mi-16 Multiviewers, as well as various other measurement and ancillary devices. Four Mi-16s combine their SDI outputs driving 4K/UHD displays, which will monitor 64 (4 multiviewers x 16 inputs) transmission links at the same time. The remaining three Mi-16 Multiviewers drive a single 1080p display for monitoring 16 links each.
The UHD signals at the remote sites are each encoded into four video streams via 2SI 3G links, with each link monitored by one Mi-16 input and connected to the IBC control center via a telco fiber network where the rest of the transmission equipment resides and from where all signals will be received, distributed and controlled.
“We chose Apantac Mi-16 Multiviewers for its many advantages,” comments Karsten Winterberg, VIDI Technical Director. “In addition to having the full feature set that we required, the Mi-16 offers high quality monitoring at a cost-effective price, compact form taking up much less space and low power consumption creating much less heat that traditional solutions. In fact, thanks to the Mi-16 depth of only 25cm, some of the Multiviewers are mounted at the back of racks behind patch panels, thus saving precious rack space.”
“The display flexibility and quality of image also plays a key role for sports production,“ said Thomas Tang, President of Apantac. “Even though the Mi-16 is a cost-effective Multiviewer, it provides the pristine high-quality display monitoring and associated features required for remote and sports production.”