Pharos Pilot MCR takes control at Media House

Trans World International (TWI) have chosen Pharos' Pilot MCR as primary routing and device control system for the company's newly equipped Media House facility.
The world's largest independent producer of sports television, TWI produces, packages and distributes over 6,000 hours of television programming each year. Located in Chiswick on the western approach to central London, Media House itself is one of Britain's biggest television facilities, serving independent producers as well as its IMG parent group.
Richard Allingham, TWI Chief Engineer, explains: "When we moved into this building in December 2002, we wanted a computer-controlled system to provide a unified interface. We had been monitoring this sector of the market for some years and chose the Pharos Pilot MCR because of its high flexibility. Pilot MCR controls our routers and a wide range of ancillary equipment including synchronisers, aspect ratio converters, proc amps, legalisers, safe-area generators, line-identifiers, SDI audio shufflers and satellite dish positioners.
"Pilot MCR enables our master control room operators to work with an efficient software-based touchscreen panel. Our main router is 256 square; we also have a 128-squared SDI matrix for VTR and a 64 squared for gallery operation. An additional 32-squared matrix is used for the edit suites. Driving all of those using hardware panels would be a nightmare.
"Pilot MCR has a common interface and is easily expandable as Media House expands. It also allowed us to retain router hardware panels in the racks area but they have not been used since Pilot was installed.
"We have a main and backup Pilot system giving us peace of mind with 100% resilience. Also key to our decision is the fact that Pilot allows us to configure our own GUI panels as we modify the hardware structure within this facility."
(GB)