CCTV installs 100 TC Electronic DB8 MKII units

At a new facility located in Beijing, Chinese broadcaster CCTV has five identical control rooms, each of which is capable of handling 10 TV channels. Two DB8 MKII transmission processors are used for each channel – one for processing and one as backup – so in total it adds up to 20 units in each control room; or 100 in total.

“We have inserted the DB8 MKII units into the signal chains of our broadcasting system and use them for loudness measuring as well as real-time loudness correction and up-conversion from stereo to 5.1,” says Jiang Ming, chief broadcast engineer at CCTV. “The units are used in live broadcast transmissions, so reliability is absolutely key. We used TC’s DB4 units at the old CCTV site for years, and they never failed. Another important factor is that we want to control the loudness of the programmes we broadcast, but at the same time we do not want to sacrifice the audio quality. We brought in a lot of different processors and carried out comprehensive tests, and ultimately the DB8 MKII units proved to perform the best.”

The DB8 MKII units are equipped with SDI I/O cards, and CCTV uses the ALC6 algorithm for loudness correction and UpCon HD for up-converting stereo signals to 5.1 plus two instances of the LM6 Radar Loudness Meter for measuring loudness at the input and the output stages. CCTV also makes use of the dual power supply feature, feeding the units simultaneously from two independent power sources to make sure the units can withstand a breakdown on one of the power feeds.

Further, the units are controlled via the TC Icon controller software and a tailor-made solution has been installed for automatic per-programme measuring and reporting of specific loudness descriptors. Finally, comprehensive SNMP trapping has been setup for system surveillance from the old CCTV site located 15 kilometres away from the new facility.

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