Leading Swedish resource provider HD Resources (HDR) provides fully-equipped, high-specification HD studios and HD vehicles for outside broadcast of ‘almost every type of live or studio recordingHDR.
The company has recently commissioned a new OB vehicle, featuring a number of DirectOut products that is presented as v2.0 of the HDR 6 24 Camera Expandable HD OB truck offering 24 seats with a 5.1 audio mixing area. The new vehicle was built under the technical supervision of Sony’s Martyn Smith and HDR Technical Director, Per de Navarro.
‘Here at HDR, the workflow has always been the key thing for us, along with a “keep it simple” philosophy,’ de Navarro says. ‘When the time came for us to build a new vehicle, these factors, combined with a tighter budget, obliged us to do some serious research into how to build a better and more powerful system at a reduced cost.’
DirectOut was already working on an implementation of Lawo’s Dallis protocol in order to remotely control a new high-quality microphone preamplifier, Andiamo.MC: ‘The idea was to create a preamp that doesn’t just deliver high-end audio but also offer the flexibility of remote control from several different consoles and DAWs,’ says DirectOut CTO, Stephan Flock. ‘When Per came to us with his request for getting Andiamo.MC to communicate with Lawo’s Dallis interface, we had only been in discussion with Lawo for a few weeks. However, as it is our stated aim to develop solutions for our clients, and HDR’s schedule was very tight, we started to implement the protocol immediately. Fortunately Per was very patient with us.’
However, it meant that HD Resources only had a few weeks over the summer period in which to redesign the HDR 6: ‘This was the biggest challenge of the entire project because we won’t accept any compromise that results in a lower quality of function or performance,’ de Navarro says.
HDR was provided with a number of solutions to using DirectOut equipment: Four Andiamo.MCs now serve as audio stageboxes, controlled via a Lawo mc256 console, while two Andiamo AD/DAs handle Madi signal conversion for the monitoring units inside the OB truck. Additionally, two Andiamo.XT SRC (sample-rate converter) units were used to convert Madi to AES for Dolby equipment and various other connections, whilst some of the converter’s analogue I/O was used for external line in/out as well as a Riedel intercom system.
Known for its work on horseracing, sports, music and entertainment productions, HDR works with all of the major Swedish broadcasters including the public broadcaster, SVT and TV4 – the country’s largest commercial broadcaster.
