In Broadcast - December 2019 - 58

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 9 - Issue 11 | December 2019

InTech

Sony Delivers Sixth OB
Truck For TRP
Thoroughbred Racing Productions (TRP) returned
again to Sony who successfully won the contract to
build a flagship truck in its sixth OB project for the
company...

n 2008, TRP was a greenfield
start-up company with three
Sony designed and built HD outside
broadcast vehicles.
In 2017, Sony won the contract to
build a further two OB units for South
Australian Racing when TRP won the
outside broadcast rights contract. Fast
forward to the current day and Sony
were engaged once more by TRP to
design and build another truck, but this
time it was to be a replacement for the
company's flagship unit and it needed
to be built in record time.
Charles Cole, TRP Engineering and
Technical Operations Manager, said:
"It was a good fit to continue our

Hiroshi Kawano (Professional Products & Solutions Group, Sony Imaging
Products & Solutions Inc.); Moriharu Ide (Sony Professional Solutions
Asia Pacific); Grant Hicks, (CEO, TRP); and Garry Rhodin (GM, Professional
Solutions for Sony Australia & New Zealand)

a replacement for our
flagship OB unit. Sony
and TRP's commercial
arrangements have been
open and transparent
and with their highly
TRP's Sony-built flagship OB uses Axon Cerebrum control
qualified and talented
long-established relationship with project and engineering management
Sony and for them to design and build we were confident that we could meet
the budget and timeline that had been
set for the new truck."
When TRP were in the planning stage
for the replacement of their flagship
OB unit the SMPTE 2110 protocol had
just been released and manufacturers
omrex is shipping its ACCESS event that the primary network falters.
were releasing product accordingly.
MultiRack, a new rackmount multiWhen a network is introduced, TRP had to make some decisions and
channel IP audio codec.
CrossLock evaluates how much act quickly.
ACCESS MultiRack occupies only 1RU, bandwidth is available, while factoring
"I provided the basic floor plan to be
and it can handle up to five full-duplex in latency and jitter information, and housed in a 14.6m trailer. Sony then
IP audio connections simultaneously.
combine the two connections to take designed the base chassis which was
ACCESS MultiRack is compatible with advantage of all available bandwidth.
signed off by a mechanical engineer
all Comrex IP audio codecs including
More than just combining networks, with the chassis geared towards
ACCESS Rackmount, ACCESS Portable CrossLock can also monitor each data having a useful working life of more
2USB, ACCESS NX Portable, ACCESS NX connection individually and, when than 20 years. Once the chassis design
Rack, BRIC-Link, BRIC-Link II as well as necessary, apply appropriate error was approved detailed layouts were
the FieldTap smartphone app. Comrex correction, recovery, or concealment completed by TRP and Sony and all
stakeholders were consulted and asked
ACCESS MultiRack is Tech3326, AES67 techniques.
and SMPTE 2110-30 compatible.
Each of ACCESS MultiRack's codec for feedback before final sign off,"
ACCESS MultiRack includes Comrex instances can deliver and receive four continued Cole.
In total, to completely kit out the new
CrossLock technology, claimed to be contact closures, as well as transfer
the industry's most sophisticated and ancillary data to the far end using the truck, TRP purchased multiple Sony
HDC-3100 cameras, 4K native HDCproven reliability layer, a proprietary serial data channel.
suite of tools that solidify connections
Instance 1 can do so with an 3500 cameras and took delivery of the
over IP networks. By sending two additional cable, but instances 2 new HDC-5500 cameras with 8x slo-mo
identical streams through two separate through 5 require an external USB software. They also purchased a Sony
XVS vision switcher and large Sony
networks (redundancy mode), or device.
combining the network bandwidth of
ACCESS MultiRack is controlled preview and technical monitors.
multiple networks (bonding mode), with an easy-to-use browser based
Aside from SMPTE 2110 there were
CrossLock provides a fail-safe in the interface.
additional reasons that this project
needed to be completed in record time.
Cole said: "We signed off the project
in late 2018 and needed to take
delivery at least six weeks before the
Spring Carnival started. This eightACCESS MultiRack - up to five full-duplex IP audio connections simultaneously

Comrex Ships multi-channel
codec ACCESS MultiRack
C

month timeline was very ambitious, but
Sony committed to the build deadline.
The Sony Beresfield manufacturing
facility went into overdrive with
the chassis and all the components
being built in parallel while their SI
department were pre-making cables.
As soon as the racks were completed
they were populated and then craned
into position. The manufacturing
team worked very long days and the
TRP team came in and performed
acceptance testing and set up at the
facility. This project was completed
without a minute to spare."
With their new flagship OB truck,
TRP became the first company in
Australia to employ the Axon Cerebrum
control platform. This now enables the
broadcaster to control inputs to the
vision switcher, tallys, multi-viewer
design and pips and to monitor all the
power I/O, UPS status and environment
with the touch of a virtual button.
"The new truck has performed
flawlessly out of the box. This is the
sixth OB unit Sony has built for TRP
and the manufacturing techniques and
the quality of the componentry used is
simply excellent. They have craftsmen
that take so much pride in their work
and the results can be seen in the
quality of the fit and finish on the unit.
Add to that the best and most reliable
cameras and vision switchers available
and this truck will provide us with years
of trouble-free operation. Both Sony
and TRP knew what was at stake with
the tight deadline and both teams had
to be agile, available and creative to
complete the detail of the unit. I'm
delighted to say that everybody who
worked on this project delivered to the
very best of their abilities," concluded
Cole.

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In Broadcast - December 2019

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