Perth – (March
2006) –A record crowd of over 38,000 rugby fans
turned up to Subiaco Oval to support the debut performance
of The Western Force, Australia’s newest Super
14 Series team.
A sea of blue team caps and
shirts replaced the usual sight of Subiaco’s gold
and blue West Coast Eagles colours proving that WA’s
starving rugby fans have been waiting for the chance
to attach their loyalty to a local team.
Wisdom Sports Media (WSM), a
remote sports broadcasting specialist won the rights
from News Limited and elected to broadcast the event
over 90.5 Sports FM and bring the bone crushing excitement
of the first ever World Super 14 Series game to the
Australian airwaves.
Wisdom Sports – which
have been in professional sports commentary since 2002
and called over 125 WA football league games plus the
entire Perth Glory Soccer season chose the Tieline i-Mix
to broadcast the Super 14 Western Force game series.”
“We had three top commentators
Leon Ruri, Ashley Morrison and Andy Aitken plus an effects
mic and we were looking for a device which could combine
our audio mixing and codec requirements into a single
box,” said Russell Dower, Proprieter of WSM.
Dower continued: “When
I looked at the i-Mix I knew it was perfect for the
job. In the past we used an array of mixing equipment
plugged into other codecs. For this event, all we had
was three headsets, one effects mic, one telephone line
and a Tieline i-MIx codec. We even had plenty of room
to spread out the call sheets, drinks and snacks for
a change.”
The game started at 7:05 p.m.
and normally they have to get there early for the setup,
but with the i-Mix, there was almost nothing to do.
They arrived an hour before the gig and began the setup.
First they connected Leon, Ashley
and Andy’s headsets to inputs 1,2 and 3 and then
hung the effects mic from input 5 out of the commentators
box window, about 10 feet above the crowd.
“I like the fact the codec
has channel on/off buttons in case someone needs to
cough,” said Dower. “Although we didn’t
use it at the time I also liked the fact the guys back
in the studio could remote control our audio inputs
if they felt the mics were getting too hot or cold.”
Next they dialed back to the
studio and connected first time at 19.2kbps with a line
quality of 78%. They then checked the audio send and
return paths.
“It sounded great and
we were ready to go. There is something gratifying about
plugging into an ordinary telephone line and delivering
the kind of audio quality we can normally only get over
an ISDN line,” said Dower. “The 3 hour broadcast
connection was flawless and sounded great.”
Dower was a big fan of the i-Mix
intelligent gain control which allows the commentators
to stop worrying about their levels and get on with
having some fun.
“Rugby is a game of many
short stops and starts. As soon as the ball gets into
play there is a few seconds of excitement before around
500 kilos of the opposing team stomps all over the attacker,”
said Dower. “Audio levels rise and fall quickly
and a single satisfactory gain setting without automatic
gain control is almost impossible to find.”
When the Western Force finally
crossed the touchdown line for the first time, Leon
and the fans almost lifted the roof off the commentator’s
box. Dower watched the PPM LEDs on the i-Mix shoot into
red and stay there for close to 10 seconds which tells
us that the mics were being pushed too hard, but as
Dower listened to the off-air feed, it was clear the
IGC had cut in and smoothed off the gain attack before
the audio could peak into distortion.
Ted Walker from Fremantle FM
who is assisting with the WSM coverage of the Rugby
said, “The i-Mix really is the sportscasters dream
box and the audio quality was excellent. We’ve
used the i-Mix a great deal and we like the fact it
is small enough to carry the entire remote kit inside
a plane. It’s so small, light and easy to carry
it can fit it in an overhead bin on the aircraft”.
WSM are planning to use the
optional ISDN module for away games in New Zealand and
South Africa and connect the i-Mix G3 to Telos and Musicam
codecs using G.722 to call the games.
For more information about Wisdom
Sport Media, please see www.wisdomsportsmedia.com
About Tieline Technology
Tieline Technology (www.tieline.com)
is the world’s leading supplier of high-quality
remote broadcast digital audio codecs. In fact, Tieline
derives its name from the popularity of its award-winning
codec line as the company changed its corporate moniker
in 2001 from Audio Video Communications (AVC) to Tieline
Technology. Tieline Technology today is supported by
a global distribution network spanning the Americas,
Europe, UK, Africa, Asia, Middle East and Australasia.
Tieline Technology,
Tieline Technology logo, Commander G3, i-Mix G3 are
trademarks of Tieline Technology. Other trademarks may
be property of their respective owners.
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