CASE STUDY

MediaCity UK Dock 10, BBC and ITV

Summary MediaCity UK (MCUK) is a new, purpose-built media park situated in Salford Quays in the historic dock lands of Greater Manchester. It is home to some of the UKs highest profile media organisations including the BBC, ITV, Dock 10 (formally known as The Studios) and Salford University and provides state-of-the-art television and radio production facilities.

IPE Ltd a leading UK systems integration company and its products division, IDS products, has had a key involvement in the technology deployment over the last four years, working with three separate organisations – Dock 10, BBC and ITV. The first project to be completed at MCUK was in the Dock 10 studio complex, where IPE were awarded the design, installation and commissioning of the new BBC Philharmonic Studio – a custom built recording facility designed specifically for large orchestras – and the supply of the Multi-Purpose Audio Studios (MPAS), designed specifically for radio drama productions and music recordings. Coinciding with this project, IPE was awarded the contract from the BBC as principal Audio Systems Integrator to provide all the radio studios and associated technical infrastructure for their new BBC North HQ on the MCUK site. This included 25 radio studios (assisted and self-op), the central audio routing and infrastructure, centralised communications and playout systems and a complex, hybrid IP/RF ring-main system. Although IPE was not involved in the technical installation of the ITV studios, an IDS system was chosen to deliver broadcast critical information and control functionality throughout the technical areas in their new facility. To date we have installed six separate IDS network systems across MCUK. All of them working 24/7, delivering broadcast critical information and control functionality to these key programme makers. These systems and the development work involved with all the different applications have played an important role in the evolution and functionality of IDS and helped shape it into the product it is today. Dock 10 Every display BBC North Initially we were asked to install an IDS system to provide typical is individually This started as another typical installation providing clocks and clocks and tally information. The specifiers for Dock 10 had seen tally information throughout the facility, albeit a large one with IDS in action and knew it was capable of replacing traditional customised to a total of four IDS systems spread across two buildings – Quay systems with a network of elegant displays, all managed and provide key House and Dock House. But again, as the project unfolded we controlled via IP. information were asked to add more functionality. During installation and following several discussions it became evident that IDS could be The first request was to design a way of controlling remote IR devices such as TVs extended to include extra functionality. relevant to its and STBs. We did this by designing and manufacturing the IDS SQ-IRQ unit which, in conjunction with an IDS Touchscreen provides desktop control of multiple IR devices. One of the first developments was a simple location, including web-based application enabling studio The radio studios provide the BBC network output for Radio 4, Radio 5 Live and Radio 6 booking information to be sent to displays NTP-referenced Music along with regional BBC Radio Manchester. The TV studios are the home of BBC situated outside the studios live areas. This Sport, BBC Breakfast and BBC Manchester. This means that many of the facilities are provided information such as production clocks and tally shared between studios, so we needed to provide presenters with a way of selecting title, producer, director etc so that people pre-configured branded displays so that they could easily ‘switch’ screen layouts to suit in the corridors and audience areas could status etc, which whoever was using them. For example, using IDS Core’s Screen Designer it is possible to see at-a-glance what was happening on create custom screens for any IDS display, meaning brand information and styling can be the inside. This has since evolved into a A simple one-page web application for creating and unique to each location. editing text and then dynamically assigning it to can be reconfigured One of ten large displays located around sophisticated web-based content manager single or groups of displays. Now replaced by our the newsrooms and linked to one of In total, these four IDS systems have over 300 attached devices, all connected and capable of ingesting and distributing versatile content manger. dynamically the studio IDS systems. The main part controlled over IP. This includes 72 displays, 44 touchscreens, 100 wall and table signal mixed-media content, text and urls. of the screen is taken up with a large panel displaying a URL from an internal lamps and 85 IDS SQ interface units. Dock 10 is often quoted as being one of the most technically advanced HD production BBC web server. The rest of the layout from their Master Typically, the IDS hardware in each radio studio consists of two or more IDS Remora3 facilities in the UK, with seven HD studios, two dedicated audio studios and a number of includes a configurable digital clock and text indicating displayed URL display drivers with associated 24” screens, an IDS Touchscreen configured with multiple supporting post production suites. It was the first broadcast facility to go live at MCUK, Control Room. function. The specific URL, is preselected tabs, an IDS SQ-IRQ interface for the remote control of multiple TVs, an IDS SQ-NLM to and incorporates a building-wide IDS system with over 60 networked displays located in from one of a number that has been pre-configured as options on local IDS monitor the environmental noise levels (SPL) within the room, and a table top IDS Lamp. all the technical areas including: Touchscreens. Outside each studio door is a twin channel IDS Wall Lamp with dual LEDs, to indicate ●● TV studios, production control rooms and green rooms broadcast status. ●● Corridors and audience areas outside studios ●● Edit and post production suites ●● Graphics and production offices ●● BBC Philharmonic studios ●● MPAS studio Every display is individually customised to provide key information relevant to its location, including NTP-referenced clocks and tally status etc, which can be reconfigured dynamically from their Master Control Room (MCR).

An IDS display located in one of the BBC 6 Music An IDS Touchscreen with tab for remote control of IR studios with tally information and branding. devices (in this case TVs) via our SQ-IRQ interface. Presenters are able to instantly change branding information via a choice of pre-selected logos on their IDS Touchscreens.

Two IDS displays: on the left, typical IDS information including NTP referenced analogue clock and studio tallies. On the right, in the audience waiting area displaying status lights, live video stream of the programme output and studio booking information derived from the IDS web interface. CASE STUDY

ITV ITV is the latest broadcaster to have relocated to the Salford Quays site, bringing their Granada News studios and Coronation Street studios under one location.

The ITV News studios share the same building as Salford University, which is adjacent to What is IDS? the BBC and Dock 10 and, in keeping with them both, IDS was chosen and integrated into IDS is an extendable, network-based the studio systems. control and display system designed specifically for the broadcast industry. This is a smaller, self-contained system, consisting of a single IDS Core, an IDS SQ3 for Consisting of dedicated software and GPI/O interfacing and a number of IDS R3 network display drivers. The IDS displays and hardware devices that use a standard associated R3’s are located in the production gallery, associated post-production areas TCP/IP backbone, IDS can be scaled and outside the studio doors and provide a constant stream of key information including to suit any installation, delivering clocks, broadcast status and tallies. anything from simple timing and tally information to complex station-wide As part of this project, ITV commissioned development an integrated television control functionality via networked production timer that emulated the facilities of the now discontinued Harris/Leitch displays and intuitive touchscreens. UDT5700 up-down timer. It integrates with essential broadcast With the demise of the UDT5700 we were able to take our existing dual LTC interface, the equipment, interfaces with third party control, automation and IDS SQ-DTC, and design a much more flexible replacement that was not restricted to a playout systems, controls cameras, particluar hardware product, meaning we could offer the familiar functions and use of the DMX lighting, mixers and many Harris unit, but could build in additional features. other common devices; while its intuitive software enables simple user Basic functionality now allows for count up, down and to specific times with GPI triggered configuration and workflow changes. presets for each. Additionally, up to four independent timers can be set for each device, but if only one timer is required the others can be disabled in the software. The timer’s UI can also be customised to suit user requirements. As this system is fully integrated into IDS, it is not dependent on dedicated 19” rack mount or UMD units to repeat the timers in other areas.

One of the ITV screens showing tally and timer information. Our production timer comes with dedicated IDS Touchscreen and an optional universal desk key panel.

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