Fairlight Technology Helps Win IBC Award

The background to a recent innovation award has been revealed.
A workflow solution designed by Fairlight's French business partner EuroMedia Technologies played an integral part in helping RTBF, the national broadcaster for the French-speaking areas of Belgium, win a coveted IBC Award for Innovation at the recent 2009 IBC Convention.
EuroMedia Technologies' AV-Process 3.0 CCE (Crystal Core edition) software was developed to work with all Fairlight products running Fairlight's latest CC-1 engine. This new media management software was installed at RTBF last year, along with a number of new Fairlight workstations.
It is now handling all audio and video files, including Avid and EVS input and outputs, enabling RTBF to automate its entire production workflow.
RTBF won the IBC Award for Most Innovative Project in Content Management after its NumProd team submitted a project entitled Service Oriented Architecture at RTBF, which showed how the broadcaster had migrated is broadcast operations to a tapeless workflow.
The winning project showed how RTBF addressing the convergence of radio, television and online services by rationalising the way it worked in order to control costs and streamline operations.
In his address to the judges, Didier Vanzeune, Head of the NumProd project for RTBF, explained how every conceivable production capability was integrated into one highly flexible workflow engine.
He said: "Repetitive operational processes are fully automated and RTBF personnel, unburdened by technical limitations and redundant tasks, can focus on creative efforts."
Fairlight and EuroMedia Technologies were among a number of suppliers recruited to realise this vision. In recent months, all RTBF audio mixing rooms have been re-fitted with Fairlight workstations, powered by the company's groundbreaking CC-1 digital processing engine.
This has enabled RTBF to benefit from significant improvements in workflow thanks to much easier file management and transfer.
RTBF's television and radio production sites are spread over the French community of Belgium, in Brussels, Mons, Charleroi, Namur and Liége. TV production and post-production facilities (studios, editing and mixing rooms) are based in Brussels for Information and Sports, in Chareroi for Magazine and Youth programs, and in Llége for Entertainment and Arts.
The broadcaster chose Fairlight Constellation XCS consoles for this project, installing five in Brussels, two in Charleroi and two in Llége. This large format mixing console was chosen because it incorporates Fairlight's award-winning Xynergi controller technology, which allows users to redefine how they interface with their creative environment.
The console's XCS centre panel centralises all major system functions directly under finger tip control providing a truly intuitive tool for recording, editing and mixing. It also ensures that all RTBF audio suites are now HD and 5.1 ready.
Other suppliers involved in the NumProd project include Dalet, EVS, Orad, Avid, MediaGenix, Front Porch and FAB.
Didier Vanzeune concluded: "The end result is a highly collaborative production environment that will easily scale and adapt to future technologies."
(KMcA/BMcC)