ERTT Adopts FOR-A Virtual Studio

A market leader in state-of-the-art technology has supplied its digiStorm virtual studio technology and multiviewers to Thomson for installation at the Tunisian national broadcaster, ERTT in Tunis.
As part of a turnkey project by Thomson Grass Valley France SA, FOR-A's virtual studio has been integrated with a Thomson vision mixer and Shotoku camera position sensors.
This digiStorm virtual studio system was configured to meet ERTT’s requirements that included working with the studio’s four cameras, and their associated motion sensors, using a dual-channel virtual set processor and two workstations to provide both programme and preview video of the virtual set for any two of the four cameras at one time.
The two workstations run Brainstorm Multimedia’s eStudio 3D Graphics software, making a full ‘eStudio': one creation-and-play workstation and one play-only station.
Other major system elements supplied by FOR-A that complete the system comprise a VRP-70HS virtual studio processor complete with chroma keyer, a DSC-100 data router and a tally interface.
The FOR-A VRP-70HS virtual studio processor combines all the video (SD or HD) elements. Housed in just 2RU it allows selecting the camera, routing the video through its chroma keyers and delaying the camera video to synchronise with the background that is rendered slightly after camera movement.
ERTT’s dual-channel virtual set processor provides both programme and preview outputs within one box. These are available to the studio mixer.
The tally interface between the studio mixer and digiStorm was a part of the joint Thomson/FOR-A project. It includes extending the mixer tally logic into the VRP-70HS digital system to control which virtual-set channel is on air and which is preview. This tally arrangement is similar to the automatic VR serial link that is supplied on FOR-A Hanabi mixers.
The digiStorm system includes a FOR-A DSC-100 data router that enables handling and managing more cameras than there are backgrounds. This allows a professional broadcast solution without needing a dedicated complete chain – comprising background ‘virtual set’ processor, a chroma keyer and camera delay – for each camera. For ERTT there are two chains to handle the four-camera system, taking advantage of the speed of digiStorm to instantly process a different background. The only advantage a one-processor-per-camera set-up achieves is seeing every camera pre-keyed on the studio monitors before it goes to air. This may be seen as a costly configuration when only two of the four cameras are actually going on air. There is redundancy for backup within the two-processor system and it works by switching four (or more) cameras through the two processors.
FOR-A also supplied multiviewers for separate monitoring requirements within the Thomson project. These include nine 16-input MV-1611HS40 units that have auto-sensing to accept virtually any mix of HD, SD or analogue video at various frame rates, on each input. The five MV-410HS, also supplied, are for monitoring purposes. All outputs are either HD/SD-SDI or DVI-I.
(BMcN/BMcC)