NTV-PLUS, the Russian satellite-broadcasting company, has installed the largest Calrec Hydra2 network in the world. The broadcaster fitted six more Calrec consoles in its Moscow facility inside the Television Technical Centre Ostankino, bringing its total number of Calrec consoles to 10, all connected using Calrec’s Hydra2 networking system.
“The Hydra2 network is especially useful in a large multi-studio installation like ours, where we handle many complex live productions, including world-renowned sports programmes. Now we have even more I/O to draw from. Hydra2 gives us unlimited flexibility in tackling any kind of task or broadcast requirement,” said Oleg Kolesnikov, chief technology officer at NTV-PLUS. “Besides that, all of the Calrec consoles have full redundancy, from the input ports to the faders, and Calrec’s Bluefin2 DSP has proved its reliability and good sound quality time after time.”
NTV-PLUS uses the Calrec consoles for mixing live sports shows, talk shows, and news production. In the latest deployment, NTV-PLUS installed two Artemis Light consoles in its Sports 1 and Sports 3 studios, and four Artemis Beam consoles in its new remote transmission studio complex, where they were first used during the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Together with the satellite provider’s existing Calrec consoles, the newest six are networked via a central Hydra2 router core, which NTV-PLUS installed in 2013 for future network expansion.
In addition to a signal transport system, the Hydra2 network offers a powerful management tool that provides increased network wide control of many parameters. Broadcasters can remotely configure mic gain, phantom power, patching, port protection, alias files, virtual patch bays, and access rights.
“NTV-PLUS was our first customer in Russia, and with nearly one million subscribers, it is a significant force in the Russian media landscape, especially when it comes to live sports production,” said Michael Reddick, Calrec’s European sales manager. “Apart from moving signals around, Hydra2 lets NTV-PLUS control and manage more of its network from any one of its consoles. That means operators have unmatched networking capability and I/O access at their fingertips, which is a powerful benefit in live, real-time operations.”
