The fleet of outside broadcast trucks operated by German production company TVN Mobile Production are the company’s calling card throughout Europe, covering sporting events, shows and concerts for television. The fleet of currently includes four 40-tonne tractor-trailers (OB truck and equipment truck), a six-camera SNG uplink truck, a multi-purpose vehicle and various flyaway solutions that integrate OB truck technology into containers. Common to all is the use of Sennheiser 3000/5000 and 2000 wireless mic series.
‘The capacity utilisation of the individual vehicles is quite considerable,’ says Stephan Thyssen, who has worked at TVN Moble Production since 1998 and run its audio department since 2004.
Helping the company operate under the demanding conditions posed by the second Digital Dividend, the Sennheiser systems are installed in flightcase trolleys and transported in equipment trucks. Each tractor-trailer unit is equipped with 16 wireless microphone systems carried in three sturdy trolley cases.
The equipment includes what is known as UHF Rack I, which accommodates four EM 3732-II twin receivers, two SR 2050 IEM twin transmitters and an AC 3200-II active antenna combiner. The rack has drawers for the handheld transmitters (SKM 5200-II with cardioid ME 5004 or super-cardioid ME 5005 microphone heads), the bodypack transmitters (SK 5212-II with ME 102 or MKE 2 clip-on microphones) and the bodypack receivers (EK 2000 IEM) complete with accessories. ‘UHF Rack 1’ is accompanied by so-called ‘Mini Racks’, whose name indicates their typical application in smaller studios. The racks are each equipped with two EM 3732-II, an SR 2050 IEM and all the necessary accessories.
Each trolley incorporates Ethernet cabling and a WLAN router, and each main rack has a laptop computer running Sennheiser’s WSM software. On their arrival at a venue, the TVN technicians first establish an overview of the local RF conditions at the site using the Wireless Systems Manager and set up the Sennheiser system components accordingly. The results of the scans are logged and saved for future reference.
While the second Digital Dividend (Digital Dividend II) is currently preoccupying professional users of wireless systems, TVN was one of the first companies prepared for Digital Dividend I: ‘An early changeover was a strategic decision for us, as we also carry out highly sophisticated audio productions,’ explains TVN Mobile Production MD, Markus Osthaus. ‘Our customers hardly noticed a thing. They could, and still can, expect absolute operational reliability from us.
‘At the time, we asked Sennheiser to convert the frequencies of our approximately 100 wireless systems, initially to the segment between 670MHz and 740MHz, which Germany’s Federal Network Agency had declared to be future-proof.’ Nevertheless, he added, ‘We want to guarantee reliable transmission in all conditions and on a permanent basis.’
TVN Moble Production is already equipped to meet the new challenges of the frequency distribution resulting from Digital Dividend II, and has selected the frequency range 470-638MHz for wireless signal transmission, which will offer reliable operation for the foreseeable future. The frequencies of most of the Sennheiser equipment were converted in May 2015. In three batches, the transmitters and receivers were sent in, modified and then put back into operation.
‘Sent on Monday, back on Friday,’ Thyssen recalls. ‘Everything went smoothly.’
New receivers were also purchased, including EM 3732-II twin receivers, which replace older EM 1046 and EM 3532 models. ‘The new receivers have a large switching bandwidth of up to 184MHz,’ Thyssen says. The systems that work in the frequency range between 470MHz and 638MHz have already been used at major sports events in Berlin and Warsaw.
Before the new Sennheiser products were acquired, an appraisal of the products available on the market was carried out independently of the manufacturer: ‘In the meantime, there are competitors that can build pretty decent equipment,’ Thyssen says. The fact that the decision was once again made in favour of Sennheiser products is not only due to technical aspects such as their widely recognised reliable performance and excellent sound but also certainly has a lot to do with what Thyssen describes as the ‘fantastic cooperation’ over the past decades and the close proximity to Sennheiser’s location in Wedemark. ‘We have been getting incredibly good support from there for years,’ said Thyssen, expressing his positive experience with Sennheiser’s products and service.
TVN Group was founded in 1984 to coincide with the introduction of the dual broadcasting system in Germany. In addition to its headquarters in Hannover, the group has subsidiaries in Germany and Austria. Presently, the group includes seven companies, with divisions covering corporate communication, television formats, film production, distribution, broadcasting, transmission technology and media specialists.
More: www.sennheiser.com
