Broadcast News

Bookmark and Share
27/09/2012

Sennheiser's 2000 Series IEMs Ensure Coldplay Never Miss A Beat

Touring a mixture of arenas and stadiums in Europe and North America since the later part of 2011, Coldplay's desire to get close to their fans in such large venues could have caused a number of problems for their wireless monitor systems.
But with Sennheiser's high quality customer support, a bespoke solution ensures that the band never miss a beat.
The shows are performed on a main stage with a centre runway projecting out and ending in a second, smaller 'B' stage. In addition there is also a C stage at the back of the arena, right amongst the audience. The entire band wears Sennheiser 2000 series in-ear monitors (IEMs) and in arenas all three stages are usually coverable from the main stage RF equipment. But when comes to stadiums, this hasn’t always been possible.
"In stadiums, the 'C' stage is usually at the opposite end of the pitch to the main stage. This, along with location specific radio pollution, meant we needed to come up with a solution for local RF transmission for the band and crew's IEMs on the C stage," said the band's RF engineer Ali Viles. "It was imperative that the radio coverage to all the stages was seamless, without any signal loss or dropout. We looked at several options, but all involved complex additional infrastructure and considerable expense."
However, Sennheiser came up trumps with an inspired solution, based on the company’s Media Control Protocol. Introduced in January via firmware upgrades to the 2000, evolution wireless ew 500 G3 and evolution wireless ew 300 G3 series, the Media Control Protocol enables rackmount devices of Sennheiser products to communicate directly with control units within an Ethernet network (UDP/IP), allowing them to be integrated into larger audio/video control systems. The units can then be remote-controlled and monitored directly from a central control panel, via an iPad™/iPhone™ or mixing console.
"When Ali came up with this challenge, it was a great opportunity to use the Media Control Protocol to solve a particular problem," said Sennheiser UK engineering and technical services manager Tim Sherratt. "It was the ideal kind of application for the protocol and there was no sense in employing an expensive hardware solution when we could achieve the same result in software."
Working closely with Ali, Sennheiser designed and wrote a standalone application using the Media Control Protocol, which allows simultaneous remote control of the RF Mute facilities on multiple IEM transmitters.
"The software means that it’s possible to have a set of identical 2000 series IEM transmitters, on the same frequencies, located local to the stages at either end of the stadium and to swap which ones are transmitting at the touch of a button from a laptop," says Ali. "As the band run through the audience between the two stages, it's possible to switch the RF transmission between the two locations. This means that the band hears virtually seamless coverage as they move between the stages."
He continued: "It's a very intuitive system to implement and use, providing us with an elegant and cost effective solution to the problem we were facing. Working in tandem with Sennheiser's WSM monitoring software, it is possible to seamlessly switch RF transmission between the two stages at opposite ends of the stadium and remotely monitor this change as it happens. This has been in use on all of our stadium shows this year and has worked perfectly on a daily basis."
The system, perfect for Coldplay’s needs, has since been adapted for much wider usage. The availability of the Media Control Protocol also led to the development of Sennheiser’s Easy Control app. This turns an iPad or iPhone into an intuitive wireless LAN media control unit for Sennheiser SR 2000, SR 2050, SR 300 G3 wireless transmitters (Firmware 1.7.0 or higher); EM 300 G3, EM 500 G3, EM 2000, EM 2050 wireless receivers (Firmware 1.7.0 or higher) and the ADN CU1 control unit for Sennheiser's Audio Distribution Network digital conferencing equipment (Firmware 1.1.0.0 or higher).
The Easy Control app is free to download from the iTunes store.
www.sennheiser.co.uk
Solidmate Ltd Memory Card Hire London

Top Related Stories
Click here for the latest broadcast news stories.

14/03/2023
Big Pic Media Helps Build ELMNTL
Big Pic Media has announced its role in helping build London's latest creative studio, ELMNTL. The Shoreditch facility is built around a host of cloud
19/04/2023
Universal Tennis Selects M2A Media's Live IP Transport Product
M2A Media has announced that Universal Tennis has chosen M2A Media's live IP transport product, M2A CONNECT, to automate, optimize, and manage the tra
18/04/2023
TrackIt Achieves AWS Media & Entertainment Competancy Status
TrackIt has announced that it is one of the first partners to achieve the AWS Media & Entertainment Competency status. This latest recognition confirm
18/04/2023
Globecast Partners With Brklyn-Media
Globecast has formed a strategic partnership with New York City-based Brklyn-Media, provider of virtualized media management and infrastructure servic
15/09/2023
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Offers Compete Playout-To-Delivery Feature Set
Harmonic has announced that its industry-leading XOS Advanced Media Processor now offers a complete playout-to-delivery feature set, simplifying video
14/09/2023
Pixellot And Dyn Media Implement AI-Automated Sports Cameras
Pixellot and German streaming platform Dyn Media have completed the implementation of AI-Automated sports cameras at 38 sports venues throughout the c
14/09/2023
Harmonic To Showcase VOS Media Software At IBC 2023
Harmonic has announced a giant leap forward in operational efficiency and performance for its cloud-native VOS® Media Software, setting a new standard
14/09/2023
swXtch.io Helps Companies Migrate High-Volume Media Workflows To The Cloud
swXtch.io is returning to IBC with strong momentum behind its vision for helping media and entertainment companies migrate high-volume media workflows
12/09/2023
FFBB Deploys Newsbridge's Cloud Media Hub And Mobile App
Newsbridge has announced that the French Federation of Basketball (FFBB) has deployed its Cloud Media Hub and mobile app to improve the efficiency of
11/09/2023
EditShare Enters Agreement with Shift Media
EditShare® has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Shift Media, a leading cloud-native video solution provider that helps creators manag
11/09/2023
LOGIC Media Solutions Appointed Master Distributor For MakePro X
LOGIC media solutions GmbH has been appointed as the exclusive Master Distributor for the MakePro X brand of German manufacturer MakeProAudio GmbH in
27/03/2024
Arrow Media Targets Story-Telling With Limecraft Online Content Management
Arrow Media, an award-winning producer of documentary, factual and non-scripted content, creates high quality programming covering a wide range of sub
14/03/2024
LOGIC Media Solutions Assists RTL Deutschland
LOGIC media solutions is assisting RTL Deutschland in transitioning its broadcasting operations to a modern IP-based infrastructure. This shift to IP-
06/07/2023
Lightware Visual Engineering Teams Up With Sennheiser
Lightware Visual Engineering has teamed up with Sennheiser to deliver a groundbreaking AV solution that caters to the modern, dynamic nature of modern
22/03/2024
Tolka To Unveil Range Of Broadcast Media Products
Tolka Telecommunications is to promote its extensive range of broadcast media products and services at the April 14-17 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas. Hig