HD on the racecourse

Dubai Media Inc. gets one step closer to being HD ready by upgrading its Dubai Racing Channel to a full HD facility. Vijaya Cherian tours the studio.

As the rest of the world slows down under the impact of the global meltdown, we see yet another sign of quiet resilience and the drive to move forward in the United Arab Emirates. State broadcaster Dubai Media Inc. upgraded its Racing Channel studio to a full-HD facility as part of its ongoing efforts to migrate all of its systems to High Definition (HD). The multi-million dollar systems design, implementation and commissioning was undertaken by Sony Professional Solutions Middle East.

“The current facility needed to be phased out to maintain a trouble-free operation as it comprised very old, analogue systems,” says Hassan Chahine, chief technology officer, Dubai Media Inc.

“As HD is the format of the future, we decided that all upgrades at DMI will be to this format and this facility also benefited from that decision. With this installation, we have literally gone from the bicycle to the aeroplane in terms of quality. However, we are still shooting in SD because HD production will complicate our current workflow at this point. Of course, if we decide to launch a channel in HD, then we will make sure the full chain of production and post as well as graphics is in HD. In the meantime, this upgrade gives us the potential, at a later stage, to use the studio for real HD, 16: 9 output,” Chahine adds.

Four Sony HDCU-1500 HD camera control units have been fitted at the studio with the added option of HDFX-100 to convert the fibre connection from the CCUs to the Sony HDC-1550 HD triax cameras.

This workflow was designed to ensure the new design integrated well with the existing triax camera systems at DMI’s studios,” says Vinod Naid, assistant manager-Broadcast Sales, Sony Professional Solutions Middle East.

“Our objective was to prepare DMI to adopt an HD workflow while at the same time, enabling these systems to seamlessly integrate with their future broadcast requirements. The studio has been designed to interface with the current system configuration while also keeping in mind DMI’s future HD broadcast path,” adds Nair.

Multi-format MVS-8000G series digital switchers have been deployed at the studio’s control room. The switchers are presently configured with 34 inputs and 24 outputs although they can be expanded to have 80 inputs and 48 outputs. The switchers have a customisable control panel layout that gives operators the flexibility to change the layout as and when required.

A Solid State Logic audio mixer with 128 channels and 64 DSP channels has been fitted at the facility. The mixer includes 32 AES/EBU pairs with digital input and outputs at the core.

Evertz multi-viewer MVP-3000 systems with 64 inputs and four DVI output channels have been installed at the facility. It is connected via a fibre link to four Sony GXD51H1 monitors. Evertz was chosen because of its ability to process both SD and HD signals, says Sony.

The monitoring area includes 52” HD LCD monitors with professional LMD series monitors from Sony.

In terms of graphics, DMI has remained loyal to Vizrt.

“We have used Vizrt across all our operations so it is important to maintain the same workflow,” explains Chahine.

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