Belgian national TV broadcaster RTBF has upgraded its Studio 24 newsroom studio network with the installation of seven Stage Tec RMDQ DSP units to replace legacy equipment that was installed in 2005. Studio 24 is a central control room connected to several studios from which RTBF broadcasts infotainment programming to the country’s French community.
The newly created studio network places higher demands on resources than was previously the case, which are easily satisfied by the high-performance DSP board.
Studio 24 has a second-generation Aurus from 2006 installed on a Nexus network that can access up to 800 channels and 160 buses after migrating to the RMDQ boards. Features such as loudness metering in the group and bus channels, an internal auto mixer, de-esser and MS decoder are also available.
‘RTBF has been a customer of Stage Tec since 1997,’ says Jean-Paul Moerman from Stage Tec’s International Sales & Consulting department. ‘Since then, the RTBF systems have been updated continuously without having to change the whole package. The fact that Stage Tec products from the early 1990s run in current systems without any problems is a very budget-friendly solution for our customers, and a unique achievement in the industry, where competitors often only offer a much shorter lifespan for their product lines and services. This interoperability is bidirectional and one of our selling points.’
The upgrade required careful planning, since the Aurus in Studio 24 is in operation around the clock. In addition to the DSP unit, the console’s TFT screens were replaced and new GUI software was installed.
‘It was not even necessary to power up the emergency backup console,’ RTBF maintenance technician Ludovic Tresinie reports. ‘The upgrade was done quickly and without problems between the late evening news and the first news of the day at 1am. It is a Stage Tec hallmark to adapt existing systems to current developments, keeping them up-to-date.’
More: www.stagetec.com
