Now home to all BBC national radio networks, as well as consolidating national and international news operations, the W1 Centre finds the BBC World Service and its domestic news services in one venue for the first time.
The remodelling of the London facility includes the creation of 140 acoustic spaces in the new ten-storey West One Phase 2 – the second phase of the rebuilding of the London HQ. Many many of the studios have been equipped with Studer OnAir 3000 frames with control surfaces ranging from six faders – for self-op broadcast – up to the largest 36-fader General Purpose studios and other custom configurations. All are modulo types, mounted into desks and using standard faders – have been supplied with a mix of SCore and SCore Live racks.
The OnAir 3000s have mainly been installed in GP and self-op studios. A typical layout for a GP studio control room includes the desk, VCS dira playout system, BNCS (Broadcast Network Control System) and Delec talkback, with outside sources locally integrated by the console. Since the OnAir 3000 sits downstream from the Delec, it can also provide back-up talkback in the event of failure. Adjacent to a number of studios are ten journalists’ kiosks (Voice Points), using OnAir 3000 modules linked to the main studio control desk. Each is equipped with a Studer Editor Module – an extended three-fader module including a subset of monitoring and talkback functionality and buttons for the assignment. Each one has access to a Codec, ISDN, VCS dira! Machine and so on.
The original aim of the project team was for identical configurations, allowing ease of implementation and consistent workflow, but different areas and operating divisions’ differing requirements made this impractical. However, having an OnAir 3000 desk in every facility even if configured differently, provides less technical operators with a level of familiarity wherever they are working.
As with any large-scale BBC project, the in-house team and user divisions wrote a stringent specification against which suppliers were invited to tender. Among specific considerations, the number of clean feeds supported and extent of configurability were key, and both were BBC specific given the range of studios and workflows the consoles are required to support. In the self-op studios such as World Service, the consoles needed to allow over-control from an adjacent studio, which the OnAir 3000 desks achieve with Madi links between two DSP cores. Other criteria included the requisite number of channels, the amount of processing power available, scalability and whether the same desk type could be used in different locations. Price was also a consideration, as the BBC must be able to demonstrate the best value for money for licence payers.
In the self-op studios such as World Service, the consoles needed to allow over-control from an adjacent studio, which the OnAir 3000 desks achieve with Madi links between two DSP cores.
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