His Highness Sheikh Hasher bin Maktoum Al Maktoum, Director General, Dubai Department of Information inaugurated the nineteenth edition of CABSAT, the leading broadcast, digital media and satellite exhibition in the region, at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC).

Sony displayed a fully functioning live 3 x camera HD studio with regular presentations taking place. Also on show was the 4K range of cameras and displays along with the new IP55 production delivery platform where live genlocked HD 1080i signals are transported over a network and this was shown alongside the live MVS-7000X based gallery.

Sony's Media Backbone Conductor for workflow orchestration, Sonaps news production and ODA (Optical Disk Archive) attracted a lot of interest.

For the second year running VSC Design was brought in to build and configure the system in a short space of time.

VSC Design has been awarded the contract to build a 4 camera HD television studio for Oracle Corporation UK Limited at the company's Reading headquarters. The contract was offered for competitive tender and VSC Design was successful against stiff opposition.

Work on the studio design has already begun. VSC Design's Managing Director; Martyn Hales added: “We are of course very pleased to have added The Oracle Corporation to our growing list of blue-chip clients.”

VSC Design has been awarded the contract for a major expansion and refurbishment of TV Zimbo in Luanda, Angola.

TV Zimbo is Angola's first independent TV channel and first started broadcasting in December 2008. VSC Design was key to the launch of the channel back then and has since provided on-going technical support for TV Zimbo. These new facilities represent a considerable expansion and upgrade for TV Zimbo with the broadcaster moving to an HD tapeless operation and the launch of a second channel.

VSC worked closely with automation provider Video Stream Networks (VSN) to secure the contract. VSN will be providing their NRCS, VSNNEWS, and business management system CREATV along with play-out, editing and graphics systems for the channels. The deal also includes a two year post installation support contract with VSC providing technical support both locally and from their UK base. VSC Design Managing Director Martyn Hales said: “We are very pleased to be involved in this exciting project, especially as we have been working with the station since its inception”.  

VSC Design has been key to the expansion of Shed Media's facilities. Having already completed the installation of their post production facilities in London, VSC have now completed the installation of Shed Media’s regional office in Brighton. 

Shed Media, one of the UK’s most successful television production companies, has seen its workload increase to the point where it has needed to expand its Brighton operation. The new facilities have fourteen off-line Avid Nitris DX edit suites, one Avid Symphony suite and one Avid Protools audio suite.

The first phase of the new facility was built to an incredibly tight schedule with a completion time of just six weeks from visualisation to finishing.

Shed's head of post production Adam Downey said: “It was completed on schedule and in budget which is down to the hard work put in by VSC Design, Hawk Builders and the Shed Media staff.” Downey added: “VSC did a sterling job, as we have come to expect from them. With such a tight schedule, good project management was key to the success of the project. The installation, including the wiring and infrastructure of the IT and the post connections, was delivered without a single hitch.”

VSC Design once again exhibited at IBC in Amsterdam and was pleased to welcome many new contacts and also old friends to our stand.

Of special note was the conclusion of the successful deal with Miranda for an entire Routing and Continuity Presentation system for TV Zimbo, combined with a Video Stream Networks (VSN) file based newsroom production and 24/7 playout system.

This will now lead onto TV Zimbo being the first end to end HD channel in Angola.

Other exciting announcements included the successful delivery of a Blackmagicdesign Universal Videohub 288 router and also an ATEM 2 M/E Production Switcher utilising its innovative SuperSource multi-box composition features to feed a studio videowall.

VSC Design was asked by Sony PSMEA to build from scratch a fully featured News Studio with ENPS and Sonaps integration.
The difference this time was it was for Sony's stand at Cabsat 2012 in Dubai.

The challenge was to design, pre-fabricate in Sony PSMEA's warehouse, deliver to site and install all in 9 days.
For this type of highly unusual requirement Sony knew that only VSC Design would be able to deliver.

3 x different studio cameras were used, from fibre to triax to multicore and in particular the HDC-2500 3G double-speed multi format HD system camera.

The system was designed to not only be a fully functioning studio with a show produced every hour but also to showcase the new Sony F65 Super 35mm 8K CMOS SRMASTER camera, the SR-R1000 SRMASTER deck, all of which fed into the live news gallery running in 1080P 3G.

The new range of Sony's OLED master monitors and fully functioning talkback with Sonaps UGC live iPhone contribution were also demonstrated.

VSC has supplied and installed a Miranda Kaleido X multiviewer system to BT broadcast services, based in the Telecom Tower, London.

The system is used to handle and monitor the company’s MUX and upload services to third party broadcasters.

Media Infrastructure Technical Support Manager at BT, Noel Poncelet (pictured), explained why the Miranda was the ideal solution.

“It enables us to not only monitor the picture transmission but also provides a comprehensive alarm system, telling us by use of colour coded warnings if there is a problem and exactly what that problem might be, whether in audio or picture quality etc. VSC provided training on the unit and the installation process was completely problem free. It certainly seems that VSC’s recommended unit is the right one for the job.”

The Kaleido-X multi-viewers offer the highest picture quality, along with unmatched flexibility in display configuration, and exceptional resilience. Two frames are available with up to 96 inputs and 8 multi-viewer outputs (7RU), or with up to 32 inputs and 4 multi-viewer outputs (4RU), making it ideal for applications demanding high picture counts per display. Kaleido  X's advanced Metadata extraction, signal probing, and alarming capabilities make it highly suitable for master control and head-end environments. It also offers triple rate 3Gbps/HD/SD performance, with Stereoscopic 3D support. The multi-viewer can be tightly integrated with routers to create very large and versatile monitoring systems.