ESPN STAR Sports Expands with QMC Master Control

At the core of the recent major expansion at ESPN STAR Sports in Singapore is a new multi-channel master control system from Quartz.
The new system includes twelve channels of QMC, each with an internal DVE, fed by upstream Xenon routers.
ESPN STAR Sports is Asia’s number one sports broadcaster and has been growing rapidly. Two years ago they installed two QMCs in a temporary area to handle demand for additional channels. Based on their experiences with these systems, they returned to Quartz for the larger permanent installation.
A critical part of the new system is the use of dual redundant Xenon routers to feed all the channels and provide a backup path. Not only do the dual routers protect against equipment failure but also they make it easy to take down one router for maintenance or expansion without disrupting normal operations. A single button push on any channel seamlessly transfers operations to the backup router.
Andy Rylance, Director of Engineering for ESPN STAR Sports, said: “We were very happy with the performance of our initial QMC systems but when it came time to put in a true multi-channel system fed from a common upstream router I was concerned about redundancy issues. Working with Quartz we came up with the concept of feeding every channel from both main and backup routers and Quartz was able to quickly provide support for this in the QMC and the new Xenon routers.”
Manual control of the QMC channels is provided by eight control locations, each with a QMC-FS control panel. All the channels can run under automation control by Encoda Systems and the whole system was installed by TSL from the UK.
Quartz is a world leader in routing and master control, with a successful product portfolio that includes a wide variety of router sizes and signal formats (including HDTV). The Quartz Master Control range scales from a single channel to the largest playout centre, with all products working seamlessly from a common control scheme.
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