dB Broadcast completes control rooms for QVC Shopping Channel

dB Broadcast, the Cambridgeshire-based systems integrator, has completed work on a new suite of control rooms for QVC, the UK's leading television shopping channel.
The new control rooms replace control room A, built in the early 1990s when the channel began broadcasting.
The new control rooms were designed and built to the same high level as Control Room B, built by dB broadcast in 2002. The two sets of control rooms provide system redundancy, so that a catastrophic failure in one set of control rooms will not stop transmission. The system is now on-air and the two new sets of control rooms are used 17 hours per day.
The system comprises six areas/rooms: the vision racks area (two rooms), vision desk and monitor stack, the control room with monitor stack, and the producer's gallery.
QVC has extremely high broadcast standards and this is reflected in the equipment selected and installed. For example, the on-screen graphics and text is played out from VizRT 3D systems, the audio desk is Calrec's Sigma 100 digital audio console (52 faders), and for visual monitoring, Sony's Grade 1 and SD/HD wide screen monitors have been employed.
dB supplied eight fully cabled vision racks that house 12 CCUs; a triax patch panel, custom designed by dB to connect up to 15 cameras to 30 destinations; three character generators; four clip stores; a DVE; a Thomson 64x64 router; Thomson XTEN_DD vision mixer electronics; and Miranda and Snell DAs and other conversion equipment.
The vision desk is approximately 3.5 metres long and the monitor stack comprises 17 monitors. The director's desk is approximately 6.5 metres in length, with a stack of 35 monitors. The sound control room has a stack of nine monitors, while the producer's gallery can seat up to five people. All the monitor stacks include under monitor displays. These are cabled to allow remote control of the monitors.
So critical to QVC is the continuity of its output that dB has provided a 12-month warranty on its work. This calls for it to be at QVC's premises within five working hours for a critical fault, within ten working hours for a serious fault, and within 15 hours for a minor fault.
Summing up dB's work on QVC's new control rooms, Tom Swan, dB's director of sales & marketing, said: "While fulfilling QVC's design concept of a a control room for the 21st century, we also had to ensure it was familiar to staff used to the original control room. We believe that we have achieved that difficult objective."
Graham Longmire, QVC's Broadcast Systems Manager, added: "We worked with dB Broadcast in 2002 on the detailed design, prefabrication and installation of the video and controls systems for Control Room B. Once again, its work has met our high standards and the new suite of control rooms will ensure the continuity of our output, which is vital as we are broadcasting live 17 hours a day."
(GB)