Standard sports broadcast setup?

[andrewh]

This screen-shot is from a Cubs broadcast. To celebrate Memorial Day, the TV announcers were calling the game from the center-field bleachers at Wrigley Field.

Can anyone tell me what the function of the 2 boxes on the table are? It appears that each box has 2 XLR male connections on the left, and 2 XLR female connections on the right. If I had to guess, I would think that they serve as a headphone amp, and a simple mixer that has a "cue" from the broadcast truck, as well as a mic preamp for the mic for the announcer, with the mono output taking the mics feed to the truck. Is that a safe guess?

[OzGizmo]

Easy... these are passive boxes, headphones would be on a 7 pin XLR on the other side of the box giving connections for balanced mic and L / R Head phone o/p.
On the side you can see the connections would be...

"mic o/p" and "Talk-back out" the head set mic goes to a 3 position switch TB-OFF-Program

Inputs into the box would be "program" and "T/B" from the truck, often these 2 signals are combined into 1 signal (as shown in the pic) called IFB (Interrupted Fold Back) it saves on cable runs, there might also be a loop through to feed the second box. Often the different commentators will get different feeds to listen to, with the main host commentator getting the time cues and the guest commentator just gets program as not to confuse them.
In the H/Phone mix crowd FX is normally NOT added as it can become annoying but if you want to get the commentators to hype it up and get them excited add crowd FX and lower their mics so they start yelling to get over the crowd noise.

Although the boxes in the pic are passive there are active boxes around requiring mains powering and some of the newer setups use a single cat5 cable and do it all digitally.
I assume that this outside broadcast was done by a smaller TV facility as that sort of set up is fairly antiquated.

[Brendan]

They're Daltech boxes, the industry standard for booth audio in the U.S.

In the front is input for headset mic (3 pin XLR female) and output for headset ears (1/4") for program & IFB and also 6 pin XLR for headsets that have mic and ears on the same connector.

On the top is (L to R) interrupt, talkback, cough, non-interrupt.

On the back, not sure what the unused XLR male on the left is for. There's usually only three connections (L to R) ifb in, talkback out, mic out.

They make custom boxes, but these appear to be standard except for that unused XLR male on the back.

[OzGizmo]

In Australia the standard seems to be "Riedel" or "Glennsound" or older "PaulKirk" units which can be way more complex than possibly needed.

Commentary Control Panel

Glensound Electronics Ltd

The system that is used in the USA seems simple and would be very robust and reliable, you mentioned "On the top is (L to R) interrupt, talkback, cough, non-interrupt." can you please explain a little more the interrupt and non-interrupt outputs?
(I just want to build a couple of units for some small OB trucks I use)

[panatrope]

Originally Posted by OzGizmo

The system that is used in the USA seems simple and would be very robust and reliable, you mentioned "On the top is (L to R) interrupt, talkback, cough, non-interrupt." can you please explain a little more the interrupt and non-interrupt outputs?

IFB or Interrupted FoldBack is usually feed (or foldback) of complete program, including remote or cueing (clean-feed or 'mix-minus') program from the studio, where for example the anchor can talk to the commentators in the field. The local director can also talk over this ('talkback') to the field commentators, usually dimming the program feed by 20dB or so in the process. A less than careful director might do this when the commentator is listening for a cue or trying to hear a question to which they have to respond. It is easier to handle this if there are two feeds - one non-interrupt (free of talkback) and the other interrupt. The controls allow the commentator to select whether he hears the director or not, or if the headphones are in mono, effectively control the level of the directors interruption. An equally effective arrangement is to feed headphones in stereo where one side is non-interrupt and the other is full IFB, as the commentator can still focus sufficiently on the program audio on one side, despite the director yelling (usually) in his other ear.

Just to add to the semantics, the button that allows the commentator to talk to the director is often called reverse talkback, because (particularly in radio) the director/producer can already hear the announcer, and his microphone allows him to "talk back" to the announcer, usually while on air. Then, to allow the announcer to talk to the producer (usually when off air and the studio mic is muted) a button is provided to send the announce mic to the producers loudspeaker, in the reverse direction to the producers talkback. But this is probably an East Atlantic/West Atlantic thing ....

[OzGizmo]

Here is a link to the Daltech box....

Talkback box

[Brendan]

Originally Posted by OzGizmo

In Australia the standard seems to be "Riedel" or "Glennsound" or older "PaulKirk" units which can be way more complex than possibly needed.

Commentary Control Panel

Glensound Electronics Ltd

The system that is used in the USA seems simple and would be very robust and reliable, you mentioned "On the top is (L to R) interrupt, talkback, cough, non-interrupt." can you please explain a little more the interrupt and non-interrupt outputs?
(I just want to build a couple of units for some small OB trucks I use)

That's the idea. The Daltech boxes are simple and reliable.

"you mentioned "On the top is (L to R) interrupt, talkback, cough, non-interrupt." can you please explain a little more the interrupt and non-interrupt outputs?"

It allows the announcer to set the level/balance for IFB (producer/director interrupt) and program (what the world hears). They come to the box on one pair from the RTS station in the truck and are split inside the Daltech box (as they would be with an RTS beltpack). If the headset is wired stereo the interrupt would be in the left and program right. Using the two knobs the announcer can set the level/mix how they like.

If you wanted to build something like this you'd essentially have to reverse engineer an RTS beltpack for the comm circuit. Only the mic circuit is passive.

[OzGizmo]

The Daltech boxes look simple and reliable certainly and has inspired some thinking with sending 2 return audio circuits down 1 cable and the way they have done things. I'm looking at how I can use cat5 cable as the connection between the box and truck rather than a multi-core XLR loom a bit like the Insta snake.
PBE-202 Audio Snake

[andrewh]

cool, thanks for the info and links!

[andrewh]

Watching the Braves vs. Giants right now. Can anyone tell me the model of this microphone?

[Brendan]

Senn 816

[OzGizmo]

It's an Audio Technica, which model?.. probably AT835
The color and the size of the cut out flutes are very different than the Sennheiser 816. (and at about 1/4 the price)
One of the nice features is it runs on a AA battery or phantom but the foam windshields didn't last very long.
http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wi...519/index.html

[andrewh]

Here's one thing I've been wondering for a long time: how is the mix engineer controlling the blend of the mic behind the backstop as the pitch is delivered? It is obvious that the mic is being ridden up as the pitch approaches the plate, as all the ambient noise comes up as well. I can't imagine that someone is physically riding a fader for each pitch. Is there some sort of automation being used, say, a button that is hit when the pitcher delivers the ball, and the fade up/fade down is handled automatically?

[OzGizmo]

Originally Posted by andrewh

Here's one thing I've been wondering for a long time: how is the mix engineer controlling the blend of the mic behind the backstop as the pitch is delivered? It is obvious that the mic is being ridden up as the pitch approaches the plate, as all the ambient noise comes up as well. I can't imagine that someone is physically riding a fader for each pitch. Is there some sort of automation being used, say, a button that is hit when the pitcher delivers the ball, and the fade up/fade down is handled automatically?

I have never done Baseball OB's but certainly Cricket has the fader raised on EVERY bowl of the ball..... manually, and I would assume the same with Baseball.
In Soccer 10-12 Sennheiser 816 / 416 are used around the field and goals, the ball is "followed" by the person doing the FX mix, the channels are faded to about 50% when the ball is not in that part of the field.
Most larger OB's often use 2 people on the desk the head person does commentary, hostings, music and EVS / VTR items the other does the live FX mix and slow mo FX.
All live and in real time.... and often hour after hour for cricket or golf.
Some level of automation is used on some sports like motor racing using audio follow switching (audio desk follows the video desk with the camera selection)

Many of the new generation of sound people are a whizz at driving a mouse and keyboard but just can't work with and mix broadcast sound ...LIVE.

[simondog]

Originally Posted by OzGizmo

In Soccer 10-12 Sennheiser 816 / 416 are used around the field and goals, the ball is "followed" by the person doing the FX mix, the channels are faded to about 50% when the ball is not in that part of the field.

Exactly. On digital consoles, I usually make scenes with each mic turned up 100% with the others at 50% for easy control by recalling scenes instead of riding faders.

I would love to be able to program a virtual x/y-axis of the field, to be controlled with the surround-panner stick.

I'm working on a simple GPI or MIDI device mounted on the mastercam for indoor sports broadcast. The mix would then be created by the panning of the mastercam... I think it might work well

[chris319]

Interesting:

The AIR Microphone circuit is completely passive. If the power to an IFB station is lost , only the IFB and talkback functions will be lost - the air microphone circuit will still function normally.

I wouldn't feel comfortable using CAT 5 as a mic cable.