dB Broadcast refurbishes MTV VTR playout-control rooms

dB Broadcast, the UK's largest independent systems house, has completed the refurbishment and re-equipment of two of MTV Europe's three VTR playout-control rooms at the company's London headquarters in Camden Town.
As MTV is a 24 hours, seven day a week operation, broacasting 51 channels from the building, including 34 channels it originates itself, the time scale for the refurbishment was extremely restricted. Much of the equipment was pre-fabricated at dB's purpose-built premises in Cambridgeshire, before being installed on site at the last minute.
For the VTR playout-control room for Studio A, the largest studio at MTV, dB had only a total of 10 working days to strip out the old control desk, install new cabling and a new custom-designed control desk from Lund Halsey. dB had even less time for the VTR playout/control room for Studio B - six working days.
Control Room A can handle up to eight VTRs playing into Studio A and has VHS and DVD recording facilities. Control Room B can handle up to six VTRs and has VHS recording facilities.
Tom Swan, dB's Sales and Marketing Director, said: "Not did we have a very tight build and installation schedule, we also had to ensure that both control rooms had similar layouts, so that MTV's operators could move from one to the other with ease. This was not straightforward, because the two rooms are different in size and have different facilities."
(SP)