Digigram supply Rugby World Cup

Norwest Productions, one of Australia's two largest audio companies, have chosen Digigram's patent-pending EtherSound technology for sound reinforcement at the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony in Sydney's Telstra Stadium.
EtherSound ES8in/ES8out audio bridges were used to distribute 24 audio channels from the front-of-house console to loudspeakers using a partly existing Ethernet infrastructure. The EtherSound network will be used again for the closing ceremony on Nov. 22.
"We had to build this installation from scratch despite the stadium's existing PA system, and the distances to cover were huge: up to 1,200 meters. The cable and installation cost would have been almost as enormous if we had used traditional analogue techniques," said Chris Kennedy, director of Norwest Productions. "EtherSound was a perfect solution as it allowed us to use in part the existing fibre optic infrastructure and to pull low-cost CAT5 cables where new cables were needed. Additionally, we were able to maintain the same high audio quality throughout the network without the audio deterioration experienced from long analogue cables."
The total length of the signal paths were 800 meters to the West stands and 1,200 meters to the East stands of the arena, which was built for the 2000 Olympics.
Three daisy-chained EtherSound ES8in units converted 24 analogue audio channels from the front-of-house console into as many EtherSound channels, which were then streamed via an Ethernet network to the loudspeakers. The EtherSound network started on a single CAT5 cable, which was then connected to fibre optics leading to the central sound control room. At this point, the signals were split and sent down two different signal paths to the loudspeakers in the East and the West stands of the arena, using a mixed fibre optics/CAT5 infrastructure. Finally, three daisy-chained EtherSound ES8out devices on either side of the stadium converted the EtherSound channels back to analogue audio.
(GB)