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

Crystal Vision has won its largest order of the year so far from ESPN STAR Sports. The Asian broadcaster opted for the equipment after considering other interface suppliers but made the end decision on the basis of the technical features and cost-effectiveness of the products. The 190 boards will be used in ESPN STAR Sports’ recently built 13 channel transmission area at the headquarters in Singapore, which is due for completion at the end of the year.

ESPN STAR Sports is a 50:50 joint venture between two of the world’s leading cable and satellite broadcasters, ESPN Inc. and STAR. It is Asia’s complete sports provider and reaches over 128 million households for ESPN and over 57 million households for STAR Sports (as of June 2004). Its 11 networks are ESPN Asia, ESPN India, ESPN Taiwan, ESPN Philippines, MBC-ESPN (Korea), ESPN Singapore, STAR Sports Asia, STAR Sports India, STAR Sports Taiwan, STAR Sports Singapore and STAR Sports S.E.A. The network brings the world’s premier live sports and leading regional events to viewers 24 hours a day.

The order included 14 TANDEM-110, 54 TANDEM-200 and 16 TANDEM-300 embedder/de-embedders, eight DDA108 and 37 DDA208A SDI distribution amplifiers, and 18 VDA110M analogue video distribution amplifiers. Also purchased were four AADA416FM analogue audio distribution amplifiers, 12 ADCA412 analogue to digital audio converters and four ViViD124 variable video delay modules.

The features of TANDEM particularly impressed ESPN STAR Sports, and as the broadcaster will be using two groups of embedded audio both upstream and downstream, TANDEM-200 and TANDEM-300 were especially suitable. These will enable ESPN STAR Sports to produce a multi-language output and broadcast in English, Hindi, Mandarin, Mandarin (Taiwanese), Cantonese, and international sound such as crowd noise. Through its 11 networks, it broadcasts individually customised feeds to each country to cater to local audience preferences. TANDEM-200 and TANDEM-300 will allow ESPN STAR Sports to broadcast the same video to many different countries with each having the most appropriate audio track.

ESPN STAR Sports was one of the first customers to use the newly released AADA416FM, an analogue audio distribution amplifier with fully floating outputs and flexible configuration of inputs and outputs. The compact size of Crystal Vision PCBs allows 12 AADA416FMs in 2U and all of the boards purchased can fit in any of the company’s frames with any other combination of audio and video modules.

Part of the order was Statesman, Crystal Vision’s PC control software. Statesman can control an effectively unlimited number of Crystal Vision frames, which makes it ideal for an installation of this size. It makes control and status monitoring effortless and flexible. The ESPN STAR Sports boards will be housed in 23 Crystal Vision Indigo 2S 2U frames, which are enabled for Statesman control.

Television Systems Ltd (TSL), a British systems integrator, handled the installation. With no affiliations to any manufacturers, TSL was founded in 1986 to meet the needs of the evolving broadcast industry. In Britain, TSL’s previous clients include the BBC, Nickleodeon, Yorkshire Television and Eurosport with UAE TV, Sky Latin America and TVNZ Auckland being a few of their international customers.

Based at Whittlesford near Cambridge in the UK, Crystal Vision provides digital keyers and a full range of digital and analogue interface equipment including converters, decoders, encoders, distribution amplifiers and audio embedders to the professional broadcasting industry worldwide.