ASIA-PACIFIC BROADCASTING

FremantleMedia recently had a unique opportunity to provide one of its hit shows, MasterChef Australia, with a customised in-house production solution.

FremantleMedia’s Nick Parker explained: “With the scale of MasterChef, we needed everyone to be able to view what was going on. Central to this requirement was a really good multi-viewer. We needed a system, which is versatile, compact, user-friendly and powerful, and we looked over many solutions on the market.”

With the features in mind, Freemantle spoke to systems integrator Magna Systems, which proposed Miranda’s Kaleido X16.

“The X-16 was a natural choice,” said Parker. “With dual head and dual HD-SDI output, a very simple and powerful user interface, and the switched HD-SDI output, we could not have asked for more. We can scale the system up as required and add features, including audio, as the shows get more complex. We can also reconfigure as we go.”

Commenting on the usefulness and flexibility of the X-16, he added: “With a show where camera numbers change frequently — sometimes we have four cameras and sometimes we have up to 10 cameras — the camera assists [can] quickly plug in the cables. Then it’s just a simple right click or button shortcut on the remote panel to load the multi-camera layout. This is a real time saver and removes the need for an engineer to run the multi-viewer on a daily basis.”

According to Parker, the MasterChef requirement was a studio in a box. “So that’s exactly what we built,” he said.

“At the heart of the box is the X-16 dual head Kaleido multi-viewer. With other systems, we would have had an over-complicated task of trying to extend DVI which then involved splitters and distribution methods, which were costly and not very efficient. The decision was made to simply take the native HD-SDI 1080i signal and distribute that to up to eight screens around the studio and production areas. With some up to 200m away from the control room, having the HD-SDI option has been indispensable,” Parker elaborated.

The new multi-viewer has enabled the smooth production of the Master-Chef episodes so far. He said: “FremantleMedia is a very busy company even on a technical level and I’m delighted to say my team have had zero down time with the Miranda Kaleido X-16. It’s a great system and, for future multi-viewers, we wouldn’t look any further than Miranda. Magna Systems has been great. David Clemesha and his team have provided excellent support, even lending us gear in the development stage of the system.”

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