NEP UK, leading OB and broadcast facilities provider, is the trusted partner to the most-watched and mission-critical events around the world.  The company relies on Axon’s Cerebrum control and monitoring platform to allow it to deliver a consistent superior service, adapt quickly to changing client needs and to efficiently manage and scale its business.

Keeping on top of its game & complex technology layers

From large international broadcasts, regular sports coverage to small regional productions, NEP UK covers it all. With a fleet of high-spec OB vehicles, flight-case systems and remote facilities, the team offers scalable solutions, tailored to clients specific requirements.

An early-adopter, NEP UK has invested in the latest IP technologies, including Grass Valley core infrastructure, to work smarter and keep it at the top of its game. It needed an open control and monitoring solution proven in the field, capable of managing and adapting to these complex technology layers to deliver a reliable and seamless workflow – easily and cost-effectively.

In addition, with increased business has come tighter project turnarounds and the need to improve resource management to keep services cost-effective. It was critical that NEP UK had the flexibility to reconfigure systems at speed, scale up and down as required and enable some productions to be run by a single engineer with ease.

Simply slicker with Cerebrum

NEP UK has deployed Cerebrum across its production facilities, including its fleet of high-end IP OB vehicles and remote production flight-case systems.

Trusted and relied upon in live sports production worldwide,  Cerebrum offers the most comprehensive third-party device control in the market. It integrates and provides native control of the latest IP technologies including NEP’s Grass Valley IP infrastructure, which is does seamlessly without the need for Orbit – minimising engineering bottlenecks to deliver a unified IP workflow.

Operators can view and manage the entire workflow with ease through Cerebrum’s user-friendly graphical interface. With simple push-button control, it shields them from the complex and changing technology layer beneath so that they can focus on their job, undertake tasks in just minutes and confidently manage productions with minimal engineering support or even single-handedly.

Each Cerebrum system allows rapid system configuration, making it the perfect solution for fast-pace production environments.  Through the user-interface, the crew can familiarise themselves with the workflow, customise it and quickly pre-configure systems to meet the requirements of the next project, rapidly switching between SDI-HD and HDR UHD formats.  This significantly reduces turnaround times to get OB trucks back on the road – saving both time and resources.

Software-defined and modular by design, Cerebrum is a truly scalable and cost-effective future-proof solution.  Without hassle or stress, it enables NEP to add new technology and adapt to new formats using the same familiar control.

“Cerebrum can cope with whatever we throw at it.  It makes the process so much slicker and a lot faster at every step,” said Gareth Philips, NEP UK’s Head of Vision and VT. “It’s an absolute pleasure working Axon. They’re always responsive, innovative and really understand what we need to achieve. The technology, the people and their fantastic support are a winning combination for our business.”

End results:

• NEP UK continues to successfully deliver landmark production from international coverage of the tennis at Wimbledon to Sky Sports Premiership football coverage.
• The team can efficiently control and manage multiple technology layers, including its Grass Valley IP infrastructure.
• Workflows have been simplified to allow operators to focus on their craft and support single-engineer productions.
• The team can rapidly reconfigure systems and get their OB crews back on the road – saving time and money.
• NEP UK is primed to adapt to ever-evolving technologies, with Cerebrum offering future-proof control of its IP infrastructure – back by Axon’s world-class support.

To read the full case-study, visit www.axon.tv

The post NEP UK works faster & smarter with Cerebrum Control appeared first on MJO Communications.

STV is Scotland’s home of news and entertainment, serving audiences with free-to-air and online programming including high quality drama, entertainment juggernauts, current affairs and local productions as well as the UK’s most local news service. The STV Player is one of the fastest growing on-demand platforms in the UK with the ambition to develop as Scotland’s digital destination. STV has adopted Axon’s Cerebrum software control and monitoring platform to provide its playout operations with total flexibility to scale and progress its ambitious plans for growth. 

Control & Flexibility – on a budget

Keeping services on-air and delivering a high-quality no-fail viewing experience is a given for any broadcaster. To ensure STV continues to meet this commitment to it audiences, it sought a cost-effective solution to monitor the health of its transmission chain, which is driven by GV Morpheus playout automation. Serving multiple platforms, most of which are resilient, the solution had to efficiently manage massive amounts of switching simultaneously. It had to be affordable, scalable and easily deployed in parallel to live operations – without downtime or disruption.

Having explored the large network monitoring systems available on the market, none could address STV’s specific requirements for design flexibility on a budget. As Jacqui Finnerty STV’s Director of Broadcast Technology and Operations explains, “We were finding ourselves a bit of a square peg in a round hole.”

An affordable highly-scalable solution

Axon’s Cerebrum control and monitoring platform offered an alternative route, providing STV with a small affordable system to manage switching and rapidly monitor the transmission chain from one side of the automation to the other, across all its platforms. Using SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), Cerebrum provides a single highly-scalable control layer, with a fully-customizable graphical interface to visualize and manage a huge range of multi-device systems and complex workflows. It simplifies the process with a powerful logic that shields operators from complexity and gives them the freedom to focus on the content.

STV quickly recognised the power of the Cerebrum to drive efficiencies across its broadcast operations.  Thanks to its intelligent modular and highly scalable architecture, Cerebrum has enabled the team to easily grow the system in stages as budget becomes available: adding new functionality such as sending proactive issue alerts to the NOC; salvos snapshots to ensure swift issue resolution; and integration with Axon’s Synapse VANC GNS600 inserters to make the insertion of logos, regional news and local ads much easier.

From a small system to address its initial switching requirement, STV has now expanded Cerebrum to deliver tally management and to control an ever-increasing number of devices across its main broadcast infrastructure including satellite positioning at its Pacific Quay HQ in Glasgow and satellite downlink in Aberdeen. This staged approach to expansion has allowed STV to learn how best to utilize Cerebrum to gain maximum benefit from its advantages.

“If you tried to scope such a big control system at the start, you’d never be able to think of everything it could deliver,” explains Jim Main, STV’s Broadcast Systems and Engineering Manager. “It was only once we started using Cerebrum, we could fully appreciate what it could do and that gave us so many ideas on how we could roll it out and expand it.  There’s just so much scope.”

Self-sufficient control – with no hidden costs

Cerebrum is open by design. It’s been developed to make it easy for users to architect and fully customise their workflows. After training, STV’s engineering team can now program the system and develop workflows in-house – without reliance on support or additional services from Axon.

This freedom is a huge advantage according to Finnerty: “To be able to organically grow the system from within, and build up our own teams’ experience todevelop it, that’s been fantastic. Other larger systems would require onsite visits to scope out what we need and the vendor would have to do it for us. With Cerebrum we’re actually empowered to have ownership of our own system. There are no hidden costs and we don’t need to pick up the phone every single time we want to do anything.”

Confident & ready for what’s next

STV continues to reap the benefits of Cerebrum. Workflows are streamlined and their teams are able to self-develop the system to meet new requirements. Ultimately, the broadcaster plans to develop Cerebrum to provide a wider view of its media workflow, encompassing its digital operation and monitor its Video on Demand service asset creation and transport process. “The beauty of working with Axon has been allowing us to meet our primary requirements and then grow from there. It’s been a great way of building trust,” concludes Finnerty.

For further information, visit www.axon.tv

The post STV drives expansion plans with Cerebrum appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands. January 3rd, 2019: When French broadcaster TF1 began looking for a control system to manage its new distributed router, there was only one product on the market that could meet all its requirements – Axon Digital Design’s Cerebrum Master Control Software.

This customizable control and monitoring system, which is fast becoming the control solution of choice for many of the world’s top broadcasters, offered the advanced functionality and broad range of features that TF1 needed to manage its audio/video processing, multiviewer and tally/UMD management.

Cyril Bernard, TF1’s Support & System Manager, says: “When we planned to replace our traditional central router with a new Riedel distributed audio/video router, we realized that we needed a versatile control system that could handle incoming feeds and audio returns for our control rooms. We looked at various systems on the market but chose Cerebrum because it met all our criteria and was so simple to use that even non-technical staff such as journalists could easily get to grips with it.”

By acting as the nerve centre for all routing Cerebrum simplifies multi device monitoring and control onto one easy-to-use interface. It supports a wide range of devices from different manufacturers – including routers, production switchers, servers, receiver decoders, multiviewers and waveform monitors – using either SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) or third party protocols.

TF1 operate five television channels in France as well as several special interest pay-TV channels and their digital offshoots. Part of the TF1 Group, the broadcaster has an average market share of 20.3%, making it the most popular domestic network in France and its channels among the most viewed in Europe.

“Intuitiveness and responsiveness were key to the success of this project,” says Richard Couzon, Axon’s Business development manager for France and French-speaking countries. “TF1’s set-up requires complex switching to take place in a very short timeframe, so they needed a system that could be customized to meet their exact needs. Although router control was the main requirement, TF1also wanted a system that could be expanded to other devices such as multiviewers, intercom systems and tallies. Cerebrum met all of these criteria and was also very cost effective.”

TF1 will expand the system in early 2019 so that it can control more devices.

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing, monitoring & control and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information, please visit

www.axon.tv.

Photo credit: TF1 Boulogne Billancourt France Photo from Shutterstock.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Margot Timmermans / Geert-Jan Gussen |  Email: press@axon.tv

The post TF1 Choses Axon’s Cerebrum For Router Control appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands. 14 September 2018: Broadcast infrastructure specialist Axon Digital Design has announced today that Euro Media Group (EMG), a leading provider of broadcasting and audio-visual services, has adopted Neuron, Axon’s new Network Attached Processor, in its strategic move towards harmonized IP media production.  The deal -  signed during the public launch of Neuron at IBC 2018 – will see ten NAP systems deployed by EMG’s Dutch entity United to manage IP signal processing and provide SDI to IP gateways in new OB trucks set for rollout in 2019.

Neuron, the world’s first Network Attached Processor (NAP), is Axon’s next generation of signal processing designed to address the needs of complex IP and hybrid-IP environments. It fully supports the latest industry standards, handling uncompressed SD, HD, 3G and UHD signals based on the ST2022-6 and ST2110 specifications. Neuron is fully packed with features like edge synchronizers and converters for processing streams before they enter the core router, reducing complexity in signal routing. It offers an impressive 200 Gb/s and 64 1080p signals or 16 UHD channels with up to 80 SDI connectors all in a single 1RU.  This makes Neuron one of the most powerful, space-efficient, cost-effective and energy-efficient processing and SDI-IP gateway devices available today.

EMG’s adoption of Neuron supports the company’s OBjective 2020 strategy: a program focused on the design and delivery of modular, scalable IP-based media production across its European group. Coupled with Axon’s Cerebrum control and monitoring platform that unites and simplifies complex IP workflows, Neuron will provide powerful FGPA-based processing power and legacy SDI gateways necessary to support the fully distributed media infrastructure EMG has in mind.

“Axon is at the forefront of IP solution development and we’re eager to deploy the new Neuron NAPs into our next generation facilities,” says René Delwel United’s Managing Director. “Neuron provides us with the full functionality and guaranteed bandwidth performance we need to drive forward our leading international broadcast services.”

“This deal is the next step in our close cooperation with EMG as its strategic technology partner and confirms our joint commitment to a disruptive IP roadmap,” states Karel van der Flier, CCO of Axon. “Neuron has already been enthusiastically  welcomed by the OB production community, who’ve been impressed by its performance.  We are excited to demonstrate the power of Neuron at IBC and work with EMG to accelerate the move to IP.”

To learn more about EMG’s OBjective 2020, join CTO Ronald Meyvisch at IBC 2018 on Saturday 15 September 12:00-13:00hrs, when he will discuss the initiative in Sports Video Group’s panel “IP and Sports Production: Winning Ways” at The IP Showcase Theatre, Room E106.

For a Neuron demo or more information, please join the Axon team at IBC 2018 on Stand 10.A21 or visit www.axon.tv/.

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Image: EMG’s CTO Ronald Meyvisch, Axon’s CTO Peter Schut & United’s MD René Delwel

About EMG
Euro Media Group is a leading provider of broadcasting and audio-visual services within the European market. The Group combines unique know-how and world-renowned expertise to master the entire value chain from image creation to distribution. Visit: www.euromediagroup.com

About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

EMG | Carla Garcia | Email: executive.assistant@euromediagroup.com

Axon Digital Design | Geert-Jan Gussen | Email: press@axon.tv

The post EMG Adopts Neuron For IP Production appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands. September 11, 2018: Axon Digital has announced it will be supporting Sony’s IP Live Production Showcase at IBC 2018, demonstrating Axon’s Cerebrum control and monitoring platform within Sony’s end-to-end IP workflow. The showcase, delivering both HD and 4K, will see Cerebrum seamlessly switching SMPTE ST-2110 IP signals by interfacing with Sony NS-BUS protocol.

The Cerebrum control and monitoring platform provides the most comprehensive and robust 3rd party device control available and is fast becoming de-facto solution for mobile production, news and studio live production, master control and remote production.  Through a powerful and user-friendly GUI, Cerebrum streamlines workflows and removes engineering bottle-necks, enabling operators to undertake complex tasks with ease.

“We are proud to collaborate with Sony to unlock the full potential of IP,” says Karel van der Flier, Axon’s CCO. “We fully support the latest industry standards including NMOS ISO4 and ISO5 and with Cerebrum are able to shield operators from complexity within IP environments – simplifying workflows to save both time and production costs. We are delighted to demonstrate the real value and power of our solution with Sony at IBC.”

Adopted by numerous broadcasters and OB companies worldwide, Cerebrum has been at the heart of recent major sports events including the FIFA World Cup, The Open, the Asian Games and NEP’s landmark fully-IP production of Wimbledon where it managed a unified IP workflow. It has also been selected by French broadcaster TF1 and UK’s ITV as the nerve centre for Europe’s most modern network of regional news centres.

To see Cerebrum in action at IBC 2018, please visit Sony 13.A10 in the Elicium Hall or join the Axon team on Stand 10.A21.  For further details visit http://www.axon.tv/.

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Geert-Jan Gussen / Margot Timmermans
Email: press@axon.tv

The post Cerebrum Drives Sony’s IBC IP Live Production Showcase appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands. 4 September, 2018: Axon Digital has announced the latest release of its popular Cerebrum control and monitoring platform, which provides the most comprehensive 3rd party device control available.  New protocols featured include support for Audinate Dante, Ross Ultrix, Harmonic, Wohler, Vislink and Blackmagic.

At IBC, stand 10.A21, Axon will demonstrate why this highly-advanced control and monitoring platform is fast becoming the de-facto solution for mobile production, news and studio live production, master control and remote production. Scalable and fully-customizable, Cerebrum streamlines workflows, masters multi-device control and removes engineering bottle-necks, enabling operators to undertake complex tasks with ease. With a powerful and user-friendly GUI, it shields operators from ever-changing technologies and complexity (particularly in evolving IP environments) so that they’re free to focus on the action.

Adopted by numerous broadcasters and OB companies worldwide, Cerebrum has been at the heart of recent major sports events including the FIFA World Cup, The Open, the Asian Games and NEP’s landmark fully-IP production of Wimbledon where it seamlessly integrated and managed the latest technologies from GVG, Arista, EVS, Phabrix, Calrec and Evertz in a unified IP workflow. It has also been selected by French broadcaster TF1 and UK’s ITV where it is the nerve centre for Europe’s most modern network of regional news centres.

Cerebrum in use at ITV News’ facility in Belfast

The latest release of Cerebrum extends third-party device control to make it the most comprehensive available, with new protocol support for:

• Audio routing for Audinate Dante compatible devices
• Router control for Ross Ultrix and Kramer routers
• Harmonic CiAB control
• Wohler iAM monitor monitoring
• Vislink MVL-HD2 control
• Blackmagic multiviewer routing

For a demo or more information, please visit the team at IBC 2018 on Stand 10.A21 or visit www.axon.tv.

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Geert-Jan Gussen / Margot Timmermans
Email: press@axon.tv

The post Enhanced Cerebrum Control Comes to IBC 2018 appeared first on MJO Communications.

IBC 2018 Stand 10.A21 

Gilze, The Netherlands.  28 August 2018: Axon, leading broadcast infrastructure specialist, will use IBC 2018 to unveil Neuron, the world’s first Network Attached Processor (NAP). Developed to address the needs of complex IP and hybrid environments, this next generation signal processing platform packs a powerful punch to support 200 Gb/s and 64 channels or 16 UHD channels in a single rack unit.

“The move to IP is causing many in the broadcast industry sleepless nights, particularly the challenge of integrating and controlling increasingly complex technology layers whilst providing guaranteed bandwidth performance for new formats such as UHD,” says Axon’s CTO Peter Schut. “To resolve these issues, a NAP is required: a Network Attached Processor! And with our new Neuron NAP, Axon is setting the standard.”

Peter Schut, Axon’s CTO

For those heading to a pure native IP infrastructure, the Neuron is extremely efficient ‘modular glue’ in a centralised and virtual environment, capable of processing all the tasks needed in a live and baseband video domain. It enables multiple channels in a single device and eliminates physical cascading of products to offer the possibility to interconnect in any order desired, without actually running different cables.

New formats such as Ultra HD and 8K use up an exponentially growing amount of bandwidth. This is where Neuron comes into its own. Within a single 1 rack unit, it can impressively process 200 Gb/s and deliver 64 1080p channels or 16 UHD channels in that same rack space.

As media production increasingly moves from a hardware-centric to an application-based approach and mixed CAPEX/OPEX business models are adopted, the scalability and performance offered by Neuron will enable the flexible delivery of different types of production – opening up further opportunities for broadcasters and delivering significant savings both in terms of space and budgets.

For those taking a hybrid path to IP, it is clear that deployment of COTS switches and CPU-based hardware has failed to provide the functionality present in SDI routers such as embedding, de-embedding, up, down, cross frame synchronization and multi-viewers. Neuron seamlessly bridges that gap by providing impressive FGPA-based processing power with efficient connection to legacy SDI I/O. Up to 80 SDI connectors can be added in that same 1RU, making it one of the most space-efficient, cost-effective and energy-efficient processing devices available today.

“We’re delighted to launch Neuron at IBC and demonstrate this disruptive technology to visitors,” concludes Schut. “It has already been enthusiastically welcomed by our clients, many of whom are pioneers in IP production, and they have been blown away by its spectacular performance. We are confident that Neuron will both ease and accelerate the move to IP – particularly in sports production where its guaranteed bandwidth performance will support the rollout of new formats including 8K.”

Visitors to IBC can learn more about Axon’s Neuron on Stand 10.A21 or on www.axon.tv

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Geert-Jan Gussen / Margot Timmermans
Email: press@axon.tv

The post Neuron, the world’s 1st Network Attached Processor, comes to IBC appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands.  21 August 2018: When it comes to live sports production, Axon’s Cerebrum control and monitoring platform has once again proved to be the ultimate team player during an epic summer of sporting action.

At the heart of numerous major sport productions – including the FIFA World Cup for BBC Sport, Wimbledon, The Open and The Asian Games – Cerebrum has enabled broadcasters and OB companies to eliminate engineering bottlenecks and create efficient unified workflows; serving up the most comprehensive third-party device control available and helping to deliver ground-breaking IP productions and UHD HDR coverage.

With a user-friendly GUI, Cerebrum provides powerful multi-device control and simplifies complexity to shield operators from ever-changing technologies so that they’re free to focus on the action. That’s why Cerebrum is trusted worldwide to keep broadcasters & OB providers at the top of their game.

“We chose Cerebrum as the best way to get complete control of the production and simplify the workflow,” commented John Cleaver, director of Dega Broadcast Systems, who was responsible onsite for BBC Sport’s IBC facilities at the FIFA World Cup. “With Cerebrum, multiple operators were able to hit the ground running, and quickly customise the set-up to help them work as they wanted.”

Cerebrum in action @ BBC Sport’s IBC for the FIFA World Cup 2018. Image courtesy of Dega Broadcast Systems.

BBC Sport’s extensive IBC facilities in Moscow, which were also designed and built by Dega, deployed the Cerebrum platform to control and monitor GVG routing, processing, MADI audio routing and tally management – all through 12 hardware and 11 software customisable panels.

Cerebrum was also at the heart of BBC Live Studio operations in Red Square delivered by Timeline’s UHD2, the award-winning IP 4K HDR OB vehicle. In addition to delivering coverage of the matches in HD and UHD HDR, Timeline provided a simultaneous UHD Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) output for the BBC iPlayer platform.

Control and monitoring inside the triple-expanding truck were extended to the on-location cabins, allowing the team of operators and editors to share tally and UMD information over the network between the BBC Sport IBC operation and easily navigate around the many sources arriving from the IBC and Host Broadcast Services. “Cerebrum was able to handle the mix of HD and UHD formats with ease,” said Quinn Cowper, Timeline’s Head of Vision. “It offers robust control and supports a hassle-free, flexible creative workflow.”

Cerebrum in action @ BBC Sport’s IBC for the FIFA World Cup 2018. Image courtesy of Dega Broadcast Systems.

Over recent weeks, Cerebrum has also been deployed by NEP UK for its acclaimed fully-IP production of The AELTC Wimbledon Championships, where it seamlessly controlled and managed a complex IP workflow featuring GVG, Arista, EVS, Phabrix, Calrec and Evertz.  Following the The Open and the Asian Games in Jakarta, the next stop will be the Ryder Cup, where CTV will once again use Cerebrum as the production nerve centre linking together all the main broadcast equipment from numerous manufacturers, to deliver a highly efficient workflow encompassing routing control, tally, UMD, multi-viewers, remote colour balance and camera control.

Visitors to IBC next month will be able to see Cerebrum in action on Axon’s stand 10.A21 and experience its broad range of features and comprehensive multi-device control that make it perfectly suited to complex production environments - from mobile, remote, news and live studio production to master control.

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops and manufactures high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Geert-Jan Gussen / Margot Timmermans
Email: press@axon.tv

The post Cerebrum keeps sports broadcasters at the top of their game appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands. July 3, 2018: NEP UK, leading OB and broadcast facilities provider, has confirmed that it has deployed Axon’s Cerebrum platform to control and monitor its complex IP workflow, which will deliver technical Host Broadcast Services for The AELTC Championships at Wimbledon this month.

This year’s tournament, which is believed to be the world’s biggest fully-IP sports production, will see NEP’s two new state-of-the-art IP OB vehicles in action paired with a huge modular custom-designed fly-pack to provide the core IP infrastructure and technical facilities. Together the systems become a single integrated solution, allowing greater integration of multiple concurrent feeds and sharing of sources to broadcast the event to an audience in excess of 1 billion in over 200 territories.

The complex IP infrastructure – which simultaneously offers dual level UHD, HD-SDI, SDR UHD and HDR UHD – required a reliable and comprehensive control system to seamlessly integrate and manage the latest technologies from GVG, Arista, EVS, Phabrix, Calrec and Evertz in a unified IP workflow.  Following extensive trials last year, NEP selected Axon’s Cerebrum as its chosen platform.

“Cerebrum provides both power and flexibility and scales effectively to allow multiple users on the system,” says Gareth Phillips, Head of Vision and VT for NEP UK.  “It simplifies our workflow by minimizing engineering bottlenecks and is easy to configure at speed.”

Image courtesy of NEP UK

Three main Cerebrum systems will be deployed within the two trucks and fly-pack, featuring a total of 150 hardware control panels. The fly-pack will be later split into four configurable systems. Each Cerebrum system allows rapid configuration and wide integration of 3rd party technologies with comprehensive tally management – all through a customizable user interface.

“In a fast-paced production environment, familiarity and ease-of-use for our skilled operators is critical. This is where Cerebrum comes into its own,” Phillips explains.  “It gives us a really simple user-friendly graphical interface that enables the crew to get their heads around the workflow, to customize it and quickly preconfigure a show file to be pulled up later.  They can get to work and focus on the production, without concern for the complex and changing technology layer underneath.”

Adrian Richmond, Sales Director UK, Ireland and Africa concludes, “IP offers true interoperability and scalability for production but it requires a control system capable of managing the complexity.  We’re delighted that NEP has chosen Cerebrum to deliver control and management within its IP infrastructure. With operational familiarity and such ease of use, Cerebrum is becoming the de facto standard in production control worldwide, helping to ease the adoption to IP and deliver the benefits that move promises.”

The two 24-camera multi-cast trucks – Venus and Ceres – have already been successfully deployed at major events including The Royal Wedding and will be in action at various prestigious sporting events this summer.

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Geert-Jan Gussen / Margot Timmermans
Email: press@axon.tv

The post NEP serves up IP workflow for Wimbledon appeared first on MJO Communications.

Gilze, The Netherlands. June 21, 2018: ITV will be launching its new UTV regional News facilities in Belfast at the end of this month, marking the successful completion of a two-year project to rollout HD production and streamline its News production workflow across six regional centres. The infrastructure, designed and built by Systems Integrator IPE, relies on Axon Digital’s Cerebrum as the control and management hub at the heart of all News operations.

Regional News is an important part of ITV’s overall contribution to public service broadcasting in the UK. Great attention was given in the system design to provide a template-approach to streamline the workflow so that it efficiently delivers high quality content to the millions of viewers who tune in each week.

“Robust, reliable control was critical within the system design and simplicity, flexibility and ease of use were the main features ITV demanded,” explained IPE’s Director Ray Bragg.  “Cerebrum removes obstacles and over-complication in the workflow and with such operational ease, wide functionality and integration it was the obvious choice in our infrastructure template for all ITV’s locations.”

The first phase of the project saw the delivery of HD News facilities in the Channel Islands, Tyne Tees, Bristol and Birmingham Central within a tight timeframe of 4-week intervals, closely followed by East Anglia in 2017.

At each site, Cerebrum provides an overarching control hub for routing, signal processing, tally control with tight integration of IFB, audio and communications. It also supports remote access for additional control and trouble-shooting. Through a user-friendly, task-sensitive graphical interface, the workflow is simplified and operators can easily master customization of tasks for specific local requirements.

“Multi-skilling is at the heart of ITV’s approach to News production and with Cerebrum control, you don’t need to be a technical expert to run the system,” says Steve Teague, ITV’s Head of Technical Services. “It simplifies the process with a powerful logic that shields the operator from complexity and gives them the freedom to focus on the content.  Cerebrum has streamlined the whole process significantly so that tasks can be done in less time and that’s given our operators a greater degree of confidence.”

The latest phase to be delivered in Northern Ireland – perhaps the most ambitious to date -  has seen the move to a brand new building and a complete technical infrastructure upgrade. Following pre-build and commissioning at IPE’s headquarters in Hertfordshire, the install was completed on site in March and, following training of multi-skilled operational staff, the system is due to go live at the start of July.

The UTV Belfast facilities, which will deliver a main News programme for the 6pm slot and shorter bulletins throughout the day, feature a studio with four Sony cameras and News-room with a Panasonic PTZ tilt and zoom camera; four Avid edit suites and an ingest traffic area. Core routing is provided by Grass Valley, with a Sony vision mixer, Black Magic graphics, SSL sound mixing and Clearcom talkback – all seamlessly controlled by Cerebrum through its powerful yet user-friendly graphical interface.

Both ITV and IPE have been impressed by the technology deployed and its ease of integration but also the customer support and training they have received from Axon.  Bragg concludes, “We’ve all been extremely pleased with Axon’s support across the course of this project and have had brilliant access to the development team.  This has meant that ITV’s staff have been able to quickly get comfortable with the system and at an early stage were able to master 95% of system configurations in-house. Cerebrum provides such ease of use, flexibility and solid reliability that deployment has been stress-free across all six sites.”

Commenting on the project, Adrian Richmond Sales Director UK and Africa added, “The adoption of Cerebrum continues to go from strength to strength, whether in live sports or News production, and today it offers even greater 3^rd party integration. The immediate benefits for our clients can be seen in how happy operators are with the functionality it delivers and the time and production costs it saves.”

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About Axon

Headquartered in The Netherlands, and with offices across the world, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission-critical broadcast applications. For more information please visit www.axon.tv.

For more information, please contact:

Axon Digital Design
Geert-Jan Gussen / Margot Timmermans
Email: press@axon.tv

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