With three sound stages, three audio rooms and numerous editing suites, Microsoft Production Studios is the largest full-service HD and 4K production facility in the Pacific Northwest. With audio an integral part of its brief, the studios’ engineering team began to investigate audio-over-IP networking in mid-2013.

After consulting with Audinate, the team were confident that the existing Cisco switch network would support multichannel audio, with the Dante networking to provide the desired levels of flexibility.

‘The transition to a Dante audio over IP environment just keeps generating steam, and I don’t see any end in sight,’ says Systems Engineer, John L Ball. ‘It’s turned into a situation where it’s about who can think of the next cool idea on how Dante can transform and simplify our production while maintaining tight synchronisation, and ultra-low latency to reduce the time and complexity for setting up the gear and sessions. We’re working toward a total networked environment for audio, communications and eventually video. Dante is core to making this easy by making every step a significant timesaver in set-up, integration and network programming.’

The facility is equipped to accommodate multiple in-house projects as wel as providing rental space to outside productions. Dante was initially installed to support in-store audio experience at Microsoft retail stores. Ball uses the software based Dante Virtual Soundcard to stream audio to a Symetrix Edge router, enabling playout of unique audio channels from PCs across multiple retail zones.

Microsoft Production Studios then upgraded its RTS Adam intercom systems, which are integrated with Dante. This has vastly simplified the ease of use of the intercom communications across the greater Microsoft campus, ensuring production teams can reliably move audio between the studio and any remote location. Microsoft expanded the system with a multi-vendor interoperable Dante solution including RTS Intercom, Shure ULX-D microphones and Yamaha CL5 mixing consoles. The system was then extended by integrating Focusrite RedNet 6 Madi bridge units to an existing Grass Valley Miranda audio/video router.

The newest network expansions to incorporate Skype feeds and support multi-lingual feeds are perhaps even more impressive. Ball recently purchased Dante-enabled Studio Technologies Model 215 Announcer’s Consoles to control and distribute live programs in multiple languages simultaneously. His first project with the Model 215 units supported an Xbox Live broadcast from a gaming event in Germany, monitoring feeds over the Dante network and streaming the program in English, German, Italian, French and two Spanish dialects.

‘The cool thing about this application was using the actual video edit rooms as voiceover rooms,’ Ball reveals. ‘We just connected the Studio Technologies gear and the Shure microphones right to the Dante network in each edit room. We used to have to run analogue cables and connections all over the floor between multiple rooms to support this kind of event before. But now, using Dante for this configuration, it takes less than 30 minutes and a network connection to be off and running. We save at least a day and a half of work in set-up time alone.’

The MPS team continues to take advantage of Dante’s integration into PCs. With the Dante Virtual Soundcard, they broadcast on-air interviews via Microsoft’s product called SkypeTX: Microsoft Production Studio’s network two-way communications with Skype users, and translate those feeds into the broadcast and production world. By replacing analogue audio I/O systems with Dante Virtual Soundcards, this has reduced infrastructure and complexity for both live and taped productions across broadcast and corporate applications.

‘The original SkypeTX box required two cables in and out to bring it into the intercom environment, and then we had to transport it to audio control and convert it to digital just to get the broadcast signal out,’ Ball says. ‘To enable talkback, we’d have to convert it back to analogue and basically reverse the entire workflow. With Dante, I can connect the audio and intercom in all IP digital, with no analog degradation. We simply capture the audio from SkypeTX, put that on the Dante network and feed our audio rooms for broadcast and production purposes. Dante is enabling a more modern means of communication with exceptional ease of use.’

The installation also includes six Studio Technologies Model 215 Dante-enabled announcers’ consoles to handle multi-lingual broadcasts in conjunction with Xbox Live.

Ball is now in the design phase of complete Dante network upgrades for all audio control rooms in the facility, and expects to upgrade the network infrastructure to a 10Gig pipe to enable the existing virtual LANs or VLANs to extend the Dante network and its production capabilities beyond the campus.

More: www.audinate.com
More: www.symetrix.co
More: www.focusrite.com
More: www.studio-tech.com