Marci Sós joins BroaMan as technical support engineer
BroaMan has appointed Márton “Marci” Sós as its new technical support engineer with immediate effect. Sós, who will take up the same role with sister company Optocore, has experience in both systems integration and sound engineer roles within the theatre world, as well as working as a a freelancer. Originating from Budapest he is multilingual and proficient on many industry leading digital platforms, including Optocore partner DiGiCo, as well as Focusrite Pro and Dynacord.
“I met BroaMan’s former support team a short time ago and was impressed with their immense level of knowledge, so I know I have big shoes to fill,” Sós commented. “The challenge therefore is to move into the role seamlessly so that clients don’t notice the personnel change. The BroaMan philosophy and mindset is similar to mine in that the company builds future-proof systems designed to last for many years with minimum maintenance.”
Announcing the new arrival, company director Tine Helme commented: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome him into the Optocore and BroaMan family. We are fortunate to have someone with Marci’s widespread experience in digital platforms, and who is already in tune with the companies’ culture.”
Multichannel video transport between different building locations
Back in 2016 Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) with its chief sound engineer, Athanasios Rovakis, started investigating the possibility of moving its audio and video distribution to fiber. At first, the Opera House modernised its audio system, purchasing a network fiber solution based around Optocore X6R-FX analogue devices and M8 MADI switch to bring together additional signal sources from distant places in the house, and to share signals for broadcasting.
Looking to expand their communications outreach, by the following year they were considering further options provided by Optocore’s partner company BroaMan. This resulted in them purchasing a point-to-point set of Mux22 multi-signal transmission devices, with the new FrameSync8 board. Offering a superior upgrade to traditional frame sync technologies it allowed sync distribution together with eight video channels, IP and serial data.
But the upgrade path was far from complete, and this year the State Opera invested in a complete BroaMan architecture, with a system based on 10 Repeat48WDM, which provide five point-to-point transport systems with 12 video channels, each transported on a single duplex fiber; a Repeat48 electrical-optical media converter, with six SDI-In and six SDI-Out; and six compact Repeat8-NANO to convert SDI to and from fiber. In a fairly unique deployment, all video is transported on multimode fiber.
When designing the system Mr. Rovakis had quickly realised that BroaMan devices were essential, as in view of the extreme transmission distances in the vast building copper was not an option, and fiber the only viable solution.
“The audio control room has been steadily upgraded over the past 70 years, with devices from many generations and manufacturers — all with their own unique formats, connections and protocols,” he said. “It is a major challenge for any new device that gets installed as it has to work with the old ones. But BroaMan’s Repeat48’s brings a complete tunnelling to the entire Opera.”
He added that since the Opera is under a preservation order, new cables are difficult and expensive—therefore they have to work with a limited amount of space, channels and bandwidth. “This made multiplexing basically the only viable option.”
Athanasios Rovakis said he had full confidence in specifying the BroaMan solution since the Optocore-BroaMan platform had been rock solid since first being installed in 2016.
He also saw its many advantages over similar systems. “In contrast to others, the Repeat48 has no boot-up time, which is vital for events with little prep time, and there is zero latency which is equally important.”
Concluded BroaMan’s Technical Sales Manager, Maciek Janiszewski, “We have recently noticed huge interest in our solutions for the installation market, specifically in concert halls and theatres. These venues require ultra-fast fiber transport with high flexibility, and lower channel count than in broadcast.
“The BroaMan portfolio fits very well in that regard, offering simple and cost-efficient, yet extremely reliable solutions. The Vienna State Opera video system is based on point-to-point multichannel fiber transport between different locations in the building, and the Repeat48 family is a perfect match for that.”
An Optocore/BroaMan fiber network is at the heart of the new MEETT Toulouse Exhibition & Conference Centre. The third largest facility in France (outside Paris) it boasts a 40,000m2 modular exhibition hall, a main street that opens into an outdoor multipurpose area of 25,000m2, and has been constructed on a 155,000m2 site.
The installation was carried out by Broaman’s long-term French partner GB4D, in close collaboration with the scenography company Ducks Scèno. Gilles Bouvard’s GB4D team worked alongside Grégory Aldéa, head of audiovisual projects at Ducks Scéno, on behalf of the MEETT consortium, Toulouse Métropole and GL Events.
GB4D were able to meet the Consortium’s specification for a fiber network that would transmit sound, video, lighting and IT, overcoming many engineering challenges in the process. “We conducted a study of possible future equipment, both upstream and downstream of our network, as during the development phase we were not aware of the audio-visual equipment that would be installed; therefore we made a possible hypothesis based purely on the plans.”
MEETT itself is divided in three parallel bands, based around a row of modular exhibition halls. In its complete form the space is massive—500m long and 80 to 100m wide. The separate convention centre and multi-function event hall are split by a reception area and multi-storey car park. With such distances involved the choice of a fiber network to transport all video, audio and data signals was obvious.
The Convention Centre’s 12 modular rooms are all equipped with fiber optics, along with a large hall, in which another convention room can accommodate around 3,500 people (seated), while a second room can host exhibitions or other needs. At its maximum, the Convention Hall can hold around 7,000-8,000 people—showing the advantage of modularity.
Fiber optic points are stationed throughout the Convention Centre, and each modular meeting room is equipped with three quad fiber connection points.
Mobile Rack
For the management of these 12 rooms, a Seminar Rooms node has been equipped with a BroaMan Route66 Video Router (40 in / 40 out), where 26/26 connect via CWDM multiplexer to fiber stageboxes in specific rooms, while 14 /14 allow fiber video connections between routers in Seminar Rooms Node and Convention Room.
Gilles Bouvard explains the rationale. “The CWDM video makes it possible to have two Video In and two Video Out per modular room. The 14 optical strand-to-strand video streams allows full duplex in / out with the Convention room node.”
The fiber points are cabled on single-mode quad fibers, dispatched to the router by a WDM frame. The latter is supplied from a manual fiber patch which allows connection of 13 COM ports (combined main connections which carry all signals on a duplex fiber) to the router on the 39 available connection points (three per room).
In the Convention Room, network distribution is via 24 quad fiber connection points. In the room node a BroaMan Route66 Video Router (38 in / 38 out) provides 24in / 24out CWDM video for fiber stageboxes and the 14 full duplex in / out SDI fiber video share streams with the Seminar Rooms node, with a WDM frame facilitating various connection points.
Router Front
Each node is additionally equipped with an Optocore AutoRouter15 for the seminar rooms and an Optocore AutoRouter10 for the Convention Hall to complete the Optocore loop.
In order to function in all the different spaces, 10 mobile racks have each been plugged with a BroaMan Mux22-IVT/MADI 4 SDI in / 4 SDI out, with 4 MADI fiber ports for audio and Optocore X6R-TP-8MI/8LO (two ports of 16AES, four DMX RS422 port, LAN Base 10/100). Each rack can be connected by a quad fiber to any connection point in the building.
The Optocore and BroaMan backbones for fiber routing were necessary to avoid latency issues, according to Bouvard. “This fantastic system allows you to have any audio control surface in the network. Given its complexity, I challenge anyone to set up an Ethernet-based or IP network as easy and fast as ours to operate, without having to be a computer scientist!”
End User Training
Sound reinforcement is an L Acoustics KARA system, while the installed mixing consoles are Soundcraft Vi1000s with MADI cards. All sound consoles can be connected to the network and most can control the 80 available Optocore preamps directly from the desk.
Upon completion, the GB4D team, Gilles Bouvard and François Lund, undertook a thorough installation check, and provided full user training and installation monitoring.
In conclusion, Bouvard says, “The challenge today is to provide solutions to satisfy all user demands and transport different IP and Ethernet-based protocols. Five years ago it was complicated, but thanks to BroaMan we now have the tools. Together we develop devices to easily transport and route data streams carrying different protocols, with no bandwidth limit.”
NTA carried out full AV integration for Caesars Entertainment
When Caesars Entertainment, who operate the world-renowned Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, planned their next expansion phase—CAESARS FORUM, a new state-of-the-art conference center—they needed a first-class technical infrastructure for site wide multi-signal transmission over this large facility, and opted for BroaMan.
Locally based design and engineering specialists, National Technology Associates (NTA) have a long track record working with the Caesars Entertainment family, including LINQ promenade, the High Roller, and many restaurants and venues. Thus they were again contracted, and as their project manager Shane Snell recognized the building was way too big to run traditional SDI cabling, he instead turned to a BroaMan fiber solution.
BroaMan offers customised fiber solutions as well as standard devices for every application that requires IP/SDI/HD/3G video transport or routing, no matter what the scale or complexity. In the BroaMan environment, all open standards can be integrated — digital video, audio and data — on the same low latency fiber infrastructure.
The Conference Center itself measures a massive 550,000 sq. ft. including more than 300,000 sq. ft. of flexible meeting space with the two largest pillarless ballrooms in the world at 110,000 square feet each. The facility has direct access to 3 first class hotels with 8,500 Caesars Entertainment hotel rooms and 20,000 more within walking distance.
Snell explained that the original design had “tons of SDI cabling” running to a total of nine IDF distribution frames. “With 400 floor boxes going to nine comms rooms, none of them connected, there was no way to tie them all together and certainly not by using coax point-to-point cabling.
“We needed a way to tie these isolated comms closets together—without a bunch of loose gear, adapters, boxes, or anything that could be less than reliable. It also needed to be easy to use by Encore Productions, the in-house productions team who live in the world of event production where flexibility, speed and ease are key.”
A BroaMan 40 x 40 Route66 video router sits at the hub of the fiber network design, with 32 3G-SDI I/Os freely routed to eight Repeat48 WDM in different locations throughout the facility. There are also eight local fiber I/Os on the Route66, which a Repeat48 interface in the hub room converts to SDI. An external WDM frame, connected to the Route66 multiplexes 32 x 32 channels in the central location, combining together the desired video channels and sends the Muxed streams down a singlemode duplex fiber connection to each remote Repeat48 WDM. Between each of the Repeat48 WDMs and the Route66 there are also two generic fiber tunnels that can be used to tunnel an optical data.
Explaining the advantage of this layout, Shane Snell said, “What we have is nearly 400 SDI cables split among nine AV closets, with a 4-input / 4-output node in each closet. This is tied together by a Route66 and WDM frame in the main AV head-end and operated under Crestron control.” All audio and video runs on a hyperconverged AV network using networked audio (a Q-SYS environment) with JBL speakers.
The NTA project manager said the implementation of Optocore control protocol for BroaMan had been straightforward. “We only had to acquire comms with the Route66 and it handles the end points. Once we had all of the patching in place, it took minutes to load that portion of the control.”
Typically, a user will patch a camera or SDI device into a floor box, and this in turn is patched into the node in the associated comms closet, before being routed to another IDF—some over 1200 feet away. “They can then patch out of the closet to anywhere within the facility.
“In total, we created a 40×40 matrix switcher that is decentralized and covers the entire space.” BroaMandistributors, Optocore North America in the shape of Brandon Coons assisted with the overall system design, using all conventional ‘off-the-shelf’ products, while at the manufacturers’ HQ in Munich, Technical Sales Manager, Maciek Janiszewski, was also on hand to assist with the overall design.
Summing up the installation, and the success of the BroaMan deployment, Snell reflected, “Most of the other SDIover Fiber solutions had felt like a glob of pieces and parts. On the other hand the BroaMan set-up was nice in that it felt like a built-to-fit solution. Instead of having point to point converters and an extra matrix, with all the additional little bits and pieces, we ended up with exactly what we needed as a system, rather than a series of parts. Also, the modular design of the nodes made it easy to get the number of ins and outs we were looking for.”
The rest of the AV integration utilizes Creston IPTV distribution, while NTA also installed a 35ft x 50ft corner hi-res LED wall, with 2mm pixel pitch—the largest of its kind in the country.
Encore Productions also say they are excited about this installation as it will enhance the overall experience for planners and the events that are scheduled.
BroaMan, the industry leader in high bandwidth fiber networks for professional, broadcast quality Video, Audio and Data has appointed Contact Distribution as its exclusive Canadian distributor. Contact Distribution specializes in sales and support for the most discerning and technical brands in the professional Audio/Visual industry, working with the country’s top consultants, designers and integrators to achieve world-class experiences with flawless execution.
Contact was first introduced to BroaMan’s sister company Optocore in 2005. Since then both companies have enjoyed a successful working relationship and participated together on many large projects ranging from installations in performing art centers such as Massey Hall, Roy Thomson Hall and the National Arts Centre; sports venues including Rogers Arena, The Scotiabank Centre and Place Bell; and both special events and installations for Broadcast including the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
“When we started with Optocore, many in the industry hadn’t taken those first steps into digital networking,” says Bill Coons, director of Contact Distribution. “We are now at a point where not only system designers and operators are more accepting of fiber solutions but fiber is a sheer necessity due to increasing channel counts, numerous different mediums and formats and the expanding production needs of events and shows to draw in and captivate audiences. BroaMan products are the next evolution of technology and people are ready to make that jump.”
This extensive knowledge base and relationship puts Contact in excellent position to bring BroaMan’s unique and flexible fibre based solutions to the Canadian Broadcast and Installation markets. BroaMan products are specially designed to convert broadcast quality video to fiber, including 3G, 4K and now 12G-SDI. Multiplexing and matrixing are also possible in different formats and channel counts. Multiplexed Broaman streams can carry a 2GB Optocore network capable of 1024 audio inputs and unlimited outputs that support analog audio, AES, and MADI as well as IP and serial data transmission. For over 25 years Optocore products have proved the reliability of fiber transport by building rock-solid equipment, and BroaMan builds on that very platform bringing the same experience and dependability.
BroaMan Sales Distribution Manager, Dawid Somló, assisted with the transition. “Contact Distribution is a well-known and highly-respected company in Canada,” he stated. “They have distributed Optocore products successfully for many years, developing a vast knowledge base in the field of fiber optics. Due to the close cooperation it was entirely logical to also hand over the distribution of our video and data fiber solutions, represented by the BroaMan brand. The fact that it is in the hands of a team who can be trusted, will provide great benefit to customers from the broadcast, installation, sports and other markets, which will be reinstated after COVID.”
