Mix Minus Key To CNBC Europe Choice of Studer Vista 5

CNBC Europe has commissioned a
Studer Vista 5 digital audio console as part of a substantial refurbishment
program of its facilities in the City of

London.

CNBC Europe uses two television studios for its daily live operations, which
broadcast to the most influential figures in the European financial sector.
Having taken the decision to upgrade its main audio facilities to a digital
platform, CNBC Europe’s Head of Technology Neil Burt headed the search for a
new console.

Burt was specifically looking for proper mix minus capability: “the quality of
mix minus was our first criterion, anything else the console could do would be
a bonus,” he says. “It’s the key plus point for a broadcast rather than a
general production console, and on the
Vista
5, it is clearly at the operator’s disposal.”

CNBC Europe has a huge requirement for clean feed working. Local program
production includes four, five, maybe six guests per show. A whole range of
external sources from the CNBC satellite network bring news from the main
financial markets all over
Europe. The studio
processes feeds to tower connecting with a number of cameras in banks and
trading floors in
London, and there are
pipelines to the
US and
Asia to pick up feeds from those territories.

Critically, presenters of the CNBC programmes may be in different cities –
New York,
Singapore,
and

London –
and their only opportunity to talk to each other is when they’re on air. Says
Burt, “the ability for conversations to happen within the desk between
transmissions is absolutely vital.”

The final decision to buy Studer was taken after a visit by CNBC’s key
operators to
London’s Royal Opera House, home to
two
Vista 5s and a Studer Vista 8. “We saw the
ease of use, the flow of the desk using the Vistonics approach, and we could
easily see how it correlates with what we’ve been used to,” explains Burt. “Our
approach is that anybody should be able to use the desk; although we have three
principal technical operators, they have many duties besides the audio mix. The

Vista 5 was the only console that was user-friendly
for everyone. Within two days of starting, people were already creating their
own snapshots!”

The
Vista 5 is installed in the production
control room. “We had to consider the space requirements, which mitigated
against an extended
Vista 5 model; however,
after three weeks’ operation, we have found unexpected spare capacity on the
console!”

With Studer’s D21m high-density audio interface system installed in a separate
machine room, CNBC Europe has the capability to control either of its two studios
with the
Vista 5 console. Says Burt, “whilst
building work is taking place in the larger of the studios, production has
migrated to the other, still using the Vista 5 for audio, and we’ve been
impressed by how little hassle this has caused.”