Endemol Group Builds New Inter-City Intercom and A/V Transport Link on Riedel MediorNet and Artist

Endemol, the world’s largest independent television and digital production company, is using Riedel’s MediorNet real-time media network and Artist digital matrix intercom system to establish a fully redundant communications, A/V, and data link in the Netherlands.

The system connects Ericsson, the distribution provider in Hilversum, with the Endemol Group headquarters in Amsterdam, where the studios and control room are located. The Amsterdam site is facilitated by DutchView. The system will be used to broadcast the FOX “Eredivisie” Football channel. MediorNet is used to get the live HD contribution feeds for all football matches to Endemol and the outputs of the production facility back to the Ericsson MCR and playout facility in Hilversum.

“With features such as embedding and de-embedding, frame stores, on-screen display, and time code insertion all standard on MediorNet, and with the tremendous flexibility and audio quality of the Artist system, Riedel was able to provide us with a versatile yet cost-effective fiber-based communications and A/V transport solution,” said Sjaak Vreeburg, manager resources at Endemol. “The Riedel solution made production a lot easier for us. Going forward, the modular design of the company’s equipment — and the ease with which a single engineer can configure, change, and control connections and signals — will allow us to adapt or expand the system as our needs evolve.”

As one of the world’s largest independent distributors of formats and finished programming, Endemol launches more than 50 new formats each year on broadcast networks around the world and distributes more than 29,000 hours of content. The company’s creative teams around the world are continuously developing new ideas, which they share across the Endemol network. The newly built system will be used for producing the Endemol Football programme that will be aired as a pay TV channel offering live broadcasts of all games of the Dutch Eredivisie.

The two facilities are connected via a redundant MediorNet Compact Pro system using two dark fiber links between the two locations. The 57- and 36-km-long connections transport up to 24 HD video signals between the MCR in Hilversum and the studio in Amsterdam. MADI audio, intercom, and data are also transported over these links. The company uses a Riedel CWDM interface to enable the transport of multiple signals over a single optical core.

Endemol uses two additional MediorNet Compact frames to connect the other studios within the Endemol facility. “Fibre for HD transport is the way to go, and since the processing is all within MediorNet, customers save time and money. All interfaces needed for broadcast are in the MediorNet solution,” said Wilbert Kooij, Riedel general manager for Benelux.

Within the Hilversum MCR, six Artist nodes not only provide intercom signals for the local control room and studios, but also route MADI audio to two Artist frames at the Amsterdam facility via the MediorNet network. The four-wire intercom signals are extracted from the MADI signal to provide for communications between the two facilities, and a separate MADI stream is connected to an audio mixer to enable staff in Amsterdam to listen remotely to all incoming audio sources in the Hilversum control room. More than 70 Artist 1100 OLED key panels are used for this application. While the Hilversum system uses a mix of Artist 128 and several smaller Artist systems, the installation in Amsterdam consists of two Artist 128 mainframes. Together with a DHD audio router, the installation uses a VSM server installation in Amsterdam to control the audio router that is used for remote access of the Artist installation and the control of the audio router feeding the program audio to the studio speakers. The MediorNet system is also managing the distribution of the external sync signal of the entire system from Hilversum to Amsterdam.