SABC Shift into Live Digital Production with Calrec
South Africa’s SABC have made the leap to digital audio production with the installation of three 24 fader Calrec Zeta consoles into Studios 4, 5 and 6 at their Henley TelevisionFacility in Johannesburg.
Supplying production, post production and broadcasting facilities to external clients in addition to it’s commitment to the SABC, all Henley studios are used principally for soaps and are capable of live transmissions. Studio 4 is still a general purpose studio generating variety programmes, audience shows and actuality.
"It was important to source the consoles from a manufacturer with a long and successful track record of supplying consoles to buyers all over the world," says Trevor Mego, SABC’s Operations Manager.
"Other deciding factors in evaluation were user-friendly design, reliability, extensive redundancy, ease of maintenance and after-sales support.
"After an extensive period of comparing the features of various potential suppliers, Calrec was found to score on all these points."
The National Public Service Broadcasters replaced three analogue consoles with the Zeta consoles, and worked alongside Calrec engineers in the UK every step of the way to help ensure a smooth transition.
"SABC operators and technicians have been assisted all the way in the conversion from analogue to digital by a specialist from Calrec, Senior Customer Support Engineer Stephen Brant. The whole process has gone without a hitch.
"Our operators have found the console’s layout to be intuitive, with features such as the clear indication of which "layer" one is working on to be especially handy. Most importantly, since installation began in December 2004 there has not been a single failure!"
Almost 19 million adults tune in to the SABC’s comprehensive network of 18 radio stations every day, and 18 million adults watch SABC’s three free-to-air television channels.
