Serving an estimated 650m homes in over 150 countries and translated into 30 languages, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has a strong hold on the world’s wrestling community. It’s most recent move has been the installation of an SSLC10 HD broadcast console to further support foreign language broadcasts.
WWE live and televised entertainment encompasses terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcast and Pay-Per-View, along with the recently-launched over-the-top (OTT) WWE Network. The C10 HD is used to simulcast RAW in Spanish live in the US and to Spanish-speaking countries. It is also used for multilingual voice to picture (ADR) postproduction of all WWE shows for localised programming in Brazil, China (in Mandarin), Japan and Russia.
While our five-room facility is primarily used for postproduction, we need to broadcast the Spanish language version of RAW live from our Audio 5 room,’ says Senior Broadcast Engineer, Jason Miller. ‘Being able to handle both the postproduction and live broadcast roles was extremely important in our choice of console.
‘We had an onsite demo of several competitor consoles, but, while they had some bells and whistles, they always took too many button presses to get to where the operator needed to go. Beyond the great sound, ease-of-use for the operator and reliability for engineering were two strong reasons for us to choose the SSL C10.”
Production efficiency is the prime requirement for the studio complex. Audio 5 – the studio control room used for the translations – has a dedicated booth for voiceover and commentary work. When used for the live Monday Night RAW broadcast, it takes its feed directly from the OB truck at the event and uses the C10 to complete the live Spanish version. Both the English and Spanish versions are simulcast on USA Network in the US and Puerto Rico, while TelaVisa broadcasts the show in Spanish on tape delay.
‘We have two Spanish-speaking announcers working the RAW show here at the studio,’ Miller says. ‘One of the immediate benefits of the console was the sound, which ensures that our Spanish simulcast has the same quality audio as our main broadcast. In fact, Jim Widman, WWE’s Audio Engineer who handles 95 percent of the workload in Audio 5, has been with the company for years and he was just over the moon with the functionality and sound of the SSL. Additionally, Chris Argento, who is also VP and head of post audio and the final word in selecting the console, was equally impressed. In fact, all of the operators in the complex just rave about the sound quality of the C10.’
The presets on the C10 also help to streamline workflow, which requires that a variety of engineers and languages are being supported from the same space: ‘Everything about the C10 makes our job easier and better than before,’ Widman says. ‘We have many operators running the console to accomplish our Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Spanish versions and there are many presets being used for different situations, such as an ISDN session, ADR or live production, as well as for voiceover and commentary. With the push of a button, we can instantly recall a setup and start working. Additionally, we can also expand our functions through the production assistant software packages that are available on the console. Essentially, the C10 accomplishes everything we need it to do very effectively.’
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