MIRA Mobile TV Designs New HD Truck Around QuStream Integrity And Cheetah

QuStream Corporation has received a major order from MIRA Mobile TV which includes Cheetah video routing, DRS AES and analog audio routing and Integrity Series signal processing equipment for MIRA's newest HD mobile production unit - M8HD.
This will be the second truck that MIRA has chosen to equip with QuStream technology and is slated to roll in April 2009. Founded in 1982 and based in Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC. MIRA Mobile TV provides high end video production services for live events and taped programs from sports, corporate and entertainment venues throughout the US and Canada.
The new truck, M8HD, is a 48-foot unit with a 35-foot expando site and will deliver in April for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. Bill Duncan, MIRA's Director of Engineering, said: "This new truck will be the eighth in our fleet and continues our faith in QuStream's routing and signal-processing technology. With QuStream's presence in the mainstream of HD production trucks, their commitment to customer satisfaction and familiarity with the equipment on our M7HD truck, we feel that using their gear will provide with the highest-quality infrastructure of any HD truck available."
M8HD's infrastructure will be 1080p-capable courtesy of QuStream's 3G compatible routing and signal processing. With its fiber I/o capability, the Cheetah router will operate in side-by-side, dual-feed mode with another QuStream-equipped truck - MIRA's M7HD. MIRA is opening a field shop in the Bay Area, where both M7HD and M8HD will be housed and maintained.
Duncan continued: "I was particularly impressed with the Cheetah DRS as it allows our audio routing to be distributed throughout the truck in multiple 1RU modules. We no longer have to homerun hundreds of audio cables back and forth throughout the truck, our sources and destinations are now connected via redundant Cat-5 cable which saves us a tremendous amount of space and weight."
The new truck's routing backbone is the Cheetah 288XE HD/MR 288x576 video router populated with 208 inputs and 320 outputs with a combination of both copper and fiber I/O and the Cheetah DRS distributed audio router populated with 128 AES inputs and outputs and 128 analog stereo inputs and outputs.
The Cheetah 288XE video router provides the SD/HD routing needed today and 1080p routing needed in the future with its 3G capability. Both routers are under the control of the PERC2K redundant control system.
M8HD's signal processing will be provided by QuStream's 3G capable Integrity Series. All under network control, the video and audio processing and distribution gear includes 24 DDA617 down-converting DAs, four DVA617 multi-rate 1x7 DAs, 36 DVA626 Dual 1x3 multi-rate DAs and two DVA6115 Multi-Rate 1x15 DAs. The truck's Up/Down/Cross conversion is supplied by 26 UDC550's - 10 with full colour correction and six with side-column keyers.
Karlton Burn, QuStream's Vice President of Global Sales & Marketing, added: "This is the latest in a series of recent orders from the mobile-broadcast sector. Returning customers are always a tremendous vote of confidence in a manufacturer's products and technical services.
"Our range of HD and multi-format routers, interfaces and signal processors continues to be in strong demand. The Cheetah and DRS product ranges combine the compactness and versatility increasingly required both for OBs and studio installations. Add in the 3 gigabit/s capability of Cheetah and the DRS that interconnects everything via redundant Cat-5 cable and it is evident that we have a range of routers that can justifiably be termed future-proof."
Further information is available at: www.qustream.com.
(KMcA/JM)