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Dubai-based television services company Taj TV recently built a brand new 300 sq.ms studio at its headquarters in Dubai Media City to accommodate the increasing production requirements of its clients in the emirate. The studio, which has been designed for production and transmission in Standard Definition, was undertaken as a turnkey project by Abu Dhabi-based systems integrator, Tek Signals.

The project includes a new studio, a corresponding control room, two voice-over booths, and an audio production room.

"Studio 1 already has top-of-the-line equipment but now, Studio 2 is several steps ahead with even newer technology," claims Chris McDonald, CEO of Taj Television Ltd. "Studio 1 is let out all the time so it made sense to get Studio 2 up and running."

Taj TV, which launched in 2001 from Dubai Media City, today has several diverse businesses. The company started out with Ten Sports, a channel that is popular among sports enthusiasts in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. Ten Sports has acquired exclusive rights in various regions for many sporting properties, including all international cricket from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the West Indies, Sharjah and Morocco; all premier hockey tournaments of the International Hockey Federation; US and Indian Open tennis and many more.

Since the success of Ten Sports, Taj TV has gradually launched seven more channels in other parts of Asia and the Far East.

But that's not all. A significant part of Taj TV's profits today come from renting out its Dubai facility and offering television production and transmission services to other broadcasters. Its biggest advantage is that it has one of the only buildings in Dubai Media City that has been built specifically with production in mind. As a result, Taj TV's clients include Showtime Arabia, CNN, BBC, City 7 and ART among others.

The new studio at Taj TV is wired for six cameras although it has currently deployed three Ikegami HL60 Standard Definition cameras. "The Ikegami HL60 is SD only and 16:9 switchable," says Steve Halis, vice president of operations, engineering and MIS. Halis oversaw the entire project. We chose Ikegami over some other brands because when we placed them side by side and tested their quality, we got better results from the Ikegami. Also, we decided to go with SD cameras because we don't think there is a big demand for HD yet in this region. We foresee that by the time HD becomes a big demand, it will be time to change this gear anyway," Halis explains.

Studio 2 is equipped with four wall boxes for easy positioning of the cameras and can support approximately 16 microphones.

The studio is equipped with 76 ARRI lights mounted on manual pantographs and adjustable rails. A 96-channel dimmer system and lighting console from ADB will be used to control the lighting in the studio. "We can light three or four sets quite adequately," says Halis. "We chose ARRI because they are very good quality and also use the same consumables as ADB lights. This was important to us as we have ADB lights in Studio 1 so we preferred lights that used the same consumables," explains Halis.

Key equipment in the control room include a Ross Synergy Digital Vision Mixer with full DVE options, a Quartz 256 router and a backup Vikinx router. On the graphics side, Taj TV has opted for a mix of Vizrt systems and Beehive's Wasp 3D graphics solutions.

Multi-viewing systems from Evertz have been used in the new control room. Taj TV also plans to replace the existing monitors in its older control room with new multi-viewer systems.

In the audio booth, Taj TV has a digital Yamaha DM 2000 mixer that is wired for 56 channels. Tek Signals has also put in place two small voice-over booths that have been integrated to the Yamaha DM 2000 mixer. "The main reason for choosing a digital mixer is because we can also do both post production as well as production work on this. Plus it has a lot more features in terms of effects, and memory saving and dynamics and it is more flexible and cost effective," says Halis.

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