Axon's Signal Processing Equipment at the Heart of Sochi Broadcast

Russian broadcast systems company, ANO Sports Broadcasting has 12 3Gb/s capable OB trucks and 12 support trucks in use on site in Sochi. AXON modular signal processing product line Synapse will be used in a broad range of applications within the OB trucks, including the up, down and cross conversion of 3G signals. AXON modules will support the distribution of video and audio signals throughout the OB truck as well as the embedding and de-embedding of audio signals. Also, AXON miniaturized technology will control the synchronizing, legalizing and keying operations within the fleet. Finally, AXON’s SynView will form the standard multiviewing platform on the trucks.

One of the trucks is configured as a large master control room with five discrete areas providing feed/line control, supervisor area, server control, audio control and a main technical area. A second support truck contains a complete flight-case based eight-camera production unit.

Next to the trucks the Sochi mobile MCR is executed with Axon's SynView multiviewers and amongst others the Synapse up/down/cross converter GXG110. This  module also has a very powerful cross-input audio shuffler and ProcAmp. 2x8 channels out of any of the 16 embedded audio channels can be de-embedded and shuffled. This means that combining embedded audio from input 1 and from input 2 in the SD outputs is possible.

In 3 of the stadiums AXON's signal processing is used for handling video to fibre conversion. The Synapse BFM88 used is a passive optical multiplexing/demultiplexing module onto single mode fibres. The module allows you to multiplex or de-multiplex 8 wavelengths onto or from one fibre with use of CDWM technology. An extra functionality added to these products is the option to have extended inputs/outputs. This will give you the opportunity to cascade two back panels. This enables users to mux/demux 16 channels onto one fibre, world's most dense CWDM solution.

A number of AXON's Dutch customers are also active in Sochi. DutchView, specialist in live registrations of big (sports) events is onsite with one of their trucks. United, a full service provider for facilities, technical and creative support for  media and broadcast organizations is present with 3 trucks equipped with AXON products. Furthermore present with AXON equipment is Broadcast Rental, a services and products rental company specialized in broadcast registrations.

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.