ESPN STAR SPORTS CHOOSES CRYSTAL VISION INTERFACE TO REACH 185 MILLION VIEWERS (September 2004)

In the largest order of the year so far, ESPN STAR Sports has chosen Crystal Vision to supply nearly 200 boards.

Crystal Vision beat several other suppliers to win the order, including ESPN’s usual interface equipment providers.

Although the equipment will be used for ESPN Singapore, the ESPN network reaches over 128 million homes throughout Asia, with each country having customised feeds to cater to local audience preferences. The equipment was needed to generate a multi language output for programmes, so that viewers in different countries can listen to different audio, whilst watching the same video signal.

Included were 14 TANDEM-110, 54 TANDEM-200 and 16 TANDEM-300 dual audio embedders/de-embedders. ESPN were impressed with the range of features that the TANDEM range offers to process and manipulate embedded audio. TANDEM-200 and TANDEM-300 were particularly suited to the application because ESPN will be using two groups of embedded audio both upstream and downstream.

Amongst other products, ESPN STAR Sports also bought SDI distribution amplifiers, analogue audio distribution amplifiers and dual analogue to digital audio converters.

Also included in the order were 23 Indigo 2Ss, 2U frames which are adapted to be used with Crystal Vision’s Statesman PC control software. Using a PC GUI makes control of a system this size effortless but similarly, Statesman is just as effective at controlling smaller installations.

ESPN STAR Sports is a collaboration between two of the world’s leading cable and satellite broadcasters, ESPN Inc. and STAR. Together they are one of Asia’s most prominent sports broadcasters. British systems integrator Television Systems Ltd. handled the installation of the equipment.