Clear-Com Eclipse-Pico, Tempest2400 and Concert on the Curriculum at Ravensbourne

Designed and installed by Television Systems, Ltd (TSL), the communications set up, comprising the Clear-Com Eclipse-PiCo, Tempest2400 and Concert systems, ensure that Ravensbourne students, many of whom graduate to the top broadcasting positions in the U.K., learn everything demanded by their industry. From the basics of broadcasting to staging full television productions, Clear-Com helps create a realistic experience on the top-of-the-line equipment these students may one day use as broadcasters.

An Eclipse-PiCo system frame has been installed in the Ravensbourne broadcasting centre’s main control room. V-Series control panels and Concert IP software panels running off laptops and desktop computers, located in all the major areas of the facility, interface with the Eclipse-PiCo frame. Areas with intercom access include the surround sound audio room, galleries and a suite for student and faculty presentations. This type of setup allows a student directing a news production in the main studio to coordinate on-screen graphics with the vision mixer in the control room and simultaneously coordinate audio with the mixer in the sound room.

V-Series panels are also installed in the facility’s post-production area, where there is an ingest bay for projects coming off Final Cut Pro or Avid systems, as well as the facility-wide server. Students editing in the post-production area can use the V-Series panels to communicate with those working in the adjacent studios. The Clear-Com intercoms are also accessible from the main gallery area, including one each for the director, vision mixer, engineer, lighting person and PA.

Tempest antennas are located in Studio A, which is a traditional television studio, and the school’s digital media studio, as well as in a large multipurpose area used for both television production and live theatre. Installed at Ravensbourne as a two-channel system, the Tempest2400 has proven ideal for the more intimate conversations between various groups within the larger production team. As such, the wireless beltpacks are only used to communicate within each room and not to interconnect all three areas.

Additionally, the college required a way to communicate without interference from London’s famed O2 arena, located just next door. With its advanced RF circuitry, the Tempest2400 was the ideal solution because it is highly resistant to interference, even in the most crowded RF environments.

“The Clear-Com intercoms have made a tremendous difference in communication for our students and staff,” says Michael Davidson, Subject Leader, Foundation Degree, Broadcast Operations at Ravensbourne. “They are very reliable systems, so students can focus on the important tasks of learning and collaborating with each other instead of worrying about staying in contact. It’s important that they can keep in touch with one another from virtually all areas of the building. We also appreciate Clear-Com’s great customer service. When we first installed the systems, the Clear-Com team was very proactive about ensuring the systems were up and running quickly without any hassles.”

Clear-Com’s Eclipse-PiCo digital matrix intercom is ideal for communication needs in small to mid-size production environments. Providing high-quality communication, Eclipse-PiCo offers 36 full-duplex panels, including four 4-wire ports, in a one-rack unit chassis. The front user menu enables quick and easy changes to input/output levels, routes and configurations, making it simple for students and professionals to master.

Clear-Com Concert is an intercom-over-IP based software system that delivers a very high-quality, low-latency communication experience. It allows for collaborative workgroups to instantly and reliably communicate using a computer with an Internet connection from virtually any location — within a facility or across the globe

Designed for extreme conditions, the Clear-Com Tempest2400 wireless beltpacks, operating in the license-free 2.4 GHz band, provide the perfect combination of ease-of-use and ruggedness needed for a school setting, while also offering the high-end communications necessary for any broadcast facility. Tempest2400 has multiple modes of operations, with each mode providing a varying level of communication flexibility and user capacity. An unlimited number of users is possible in the split and shared modes. In normal mode, which is used by Ravensbourne, up to 10 basestations and five full-duplex wireless beltstations can operate on one system with no frequency coordination required.

“It is truly an honour that such a prestigious educational institution as Ravensbourne has chosen Clear-Com intercoms to power its student and staff communications,” says Dan Muchmore, Regional Sales Manager, UK and Ireland, Clear-Com. “Leveraging the quality, accessibility and reliability of Clear-Com intercoms is a great way for students to learn about professional intercoms ─ equipment they will need to know and understand in order to perform their tasks efficiently in their broadcast careers. We are happy to play a role in nurturing the talent that will one day become some of the country’s top broadcast specialists.”

The Concert installation at Ravensbourne marks the first use of a Mac-based Concert system in the world.