Facility House
Facility House Broadcast Group’s newest HD outside broadcast vehicle relies on Draco major Draco major
The Customer
Facility House Broadcast Group is the Netherland’s newest full-service facility management company for the television industry and already one of the most highly respected providers in their home market. Facility House offers video, film and production services from news to documentaries, from pop to classical, from reality to drama and sports to education for all ENG recordings any video standard.
The Challenge
In 2011, the latest addition of a flagship, 12-camera HD outside broadcast vehicle was made to their fleet of 25 ENG kits, 35 edit suites and 2 existing outside broadcast vehicles. This truck was built in-house by Facilities House’s own team of specialists in response to the high demand for the company’s services that produces over 500 outside broadcast programs annually.
The integration team required a highly reliable, high quality KVM matrix switch to route and manage the multitude of PC-based, graphics, video, data and stored content to several workstation terminals in the vision and audio mixing areas of the vehicle.
The Solution
The solution chosen was the Draco major modular KVM/video matrix switch. The chassis of the Draco major was fully populated with 32 input ports and 16 output ports to support full HD content up to 1920 x 1200 DVI-D resolutions.
Cat X cabling was used throughout the vehicle. The Draco major’s option of fiber ports will allow for future changes to provide additional support or long distance connectivity at a later date without needing to replace the whole system.
At each workstation terminal the operator has full instantaneous interactive control of the host PC including USB HID, USB 2.0 connection. RS232 controls and audio feeds are also accommodated providing greater flexibility and ensuring that all features are included in the overall system. The Draco major is controlled by the integrated control system on the OB vehicle to provide switching and monitoring of signals. User-defined and stored switch configurations allow individual setups to be prepared prior to arrival on site and permit reselections of favorite routes as desired by individual broadcast teams.
The Benefit
The truck is highly versatile but at the same time features powerful technology and delivers a high level of quality. One of the major considerations in designing an OB truck is in limiting the space and weight requirement for individual systems. With the Draco major we can perform all routing and switching tasks, including multi-screen replication in a single compact unit. – Jan de Pijper, Facility House‘s MD
