dB Broadcast build new control room for QVC

dB Broadcast, the Cambridgeshire-based systems integrator, has completed work on a new control room for QVC, Britain's leading electronic retailer.
Finished in September 2002 and commissioned the following month, the new control room will act primarily as an immediate back-up to QVC's original control room A, so that the station can stay on-air, or resume broadcasting very quickly, in the event of an emergency.
Control room B comprises five areas: the vision racks area, vision desk, director's desk and monitor stack, the sound control room and producer's gallery.
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; Character Generators; clip stores; a DVE; a 64 x 64 router, vision mixer electronics; 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.
While QVC was responsible for the design concept, dB's contribution was the detailed design, prefabrication and installation of the video and controls systems within all five areas of the control room.
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 dB's work on QVC's control room B, Tom Swan, director of sales & marketing, said: "While fulfilling QVC's design concept of `a control room for the 21st century', we also had to ensure that it was familiar to staff used to the original control room A. We believe we have achieved that difficult objective."
(GB)