Crosscreek Television Productions Uses Joseph Electronics DFT-12 Units

Alabama-based remote broadcast company Crosscreek Television Productions is using Jospeh Fiber Solutions’s DFT-12JR signal transport boxes on its mobile units in order to move signals more efficiently for its clients. The DFT-12JR is a single-RU box that enables 12 channels of HD transport in groups of two over one or two single-mode fibers.

“We are always looking at options to make our clients’ shows more efficient and to improve our overall offering to new clients, as well,” said Jonathan Cline, engineering manager at Crosscreek Television Productions. “We have heard nothing but good things about the Joseph DFT units, and we haven’t been disappointed. The great thing about them is the ability to change the direction of the signal path in pairs. We hope to make them standard across our entire fleet.”

Before purchasing the DFT-12JR units, Crosscreek was using multiple single-channel BNC-to-fiber and fiber-to-BNC sets to distribute signals. Now Crosscreek uses two sets of 1-RU DFT-12 units, which are user-configurable in pairs of two in order to meet any send/receive requirements. Crosscreek’s normal configuration is eight transmission paths and four receive paths to accommodate its most common booth setup — allowing for eight feeds to monitors in the booth, plus an HD Telestrator and one additional signal to be sent back to the mobile unit.

Crosscreek purchased road cases and racked the units along with a power supply, two HD DAs, and a tie-line panel to simplify setup for whomever would be using the gear that day. One end of the unit lives inside the truck, and the case goes wherever the signal feeds are needed. The DFT-12JR, like other units in the DFT Series, comes standard with redundant power supplies to ensure a complete backup of critical paths. In addition, full-fiber redundancy with automatic fail-safe switchover is available as an option for all DFT Series frames.

So far Crosscreek has used its DFT-12JR units for a major horse-racing broadcast that required its OB trucks to receive feeds from the in-house facility at a significant distance from the TV compound. In the future, Crosscreek will put the units to work on NHL, NBA, college football, and college basketball broadcasts to send feeds to a booth, tie into the house cabling, or share feeds among mobile units.

“We created the DFT Series of signal transport boxes to improve truck signal interconnection and distribution, and Crosscreek is a great example of this,” said Yohay Hahamy, president and CEO of Joseph Electronics. “The DFT-12JR boxes not only make set-and-strike faster and easier for Crosscreek operators, but they also make it possible to move the OB trucks farther away from ever more crowded TV compounds without compromising quality or performance.”