NCP Count on Calrec
New Century Productions (NCP) is adding two new Calrec mixing desks to its outside broadcasting fleet.
NCP selected a 72-fader Alpha with Bluefin audio console for its newest, state-of-the-art HD production truck, NCP X. In addition, NCP is upgrading its NCP IV HD truck with a new 64-fader Sigma with Bluefin console.
While both trucks will broadcast a wide variety of sports, entertainment, and political events for any number of clients, NCP X was built specifically to meet the exacting standards of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball telecasts.
“Sunday Night Baseball is the world’s premier baseball telecast,” said Mike Mundt, vice president of engineering at NCP. “ESPN pulls out all the stops for this show — 25 cameras, most of them with a pair of mics, not to mention the dozens of effects mics out on the field — as well as 30 or more multichannel playback sources inside the truck. It is an extremely complex audio set-up and you need an audio console with a lot of horsepower to keep it under control. The Calrec mixing desks have immense ability to transform enormously complex set-ups into something a single operator can manage. For us at New Century Productions, it was an easy choice. The console had to be a Calrec.”
The new NCP X is a 53-foot expandable unit that was first deployed for the FOX network’s coverage of NFL football in the fall before taking on its main responsibility, ESPN baseball, this coming spring. NCP IV has been broadcasting NHRA drag racing and boxing for Showtime, and is poised to begin a season of ESPN college basketball.
As befits its placement in a state-of-the-art outside broadcast truck, the Alpha is Calrec’s top-of-the-line audio console, equipped with 480 channel processing paths packaged as 162 stereo and 156 mono channels, 144 of which can be accessed simultaneously, and allowing up to 78 full 5.1 surround channels. Because of Calrec’s breakthrough Bluefin technology, all of the system’s horsepower is packed onto a single DSP card, making the console durable, power-efficient and compact. A second DSP card provides full redundancy for enhanced reliability.
The Sigma is equipped with 320 channel processing paths (104 mono channels and 108 stereo channels).
NCP X is the third New Century OB truck outfitted with an Alpha console and the Sigma on NCP IV is the seventh Calrec audio console in the NCP fleet. The company’s loyalty to Calrec consoles derives from advantages beyond horsepower that specifically address the challenges of OB applications. Calrec’s software design enables audio setups to be easily saved and instantly reproduced from week to week or venue to venue. Calrec’s fundamental structural design ensures solid performance in a hostile, mobile environment as well as providing NCP truck designers with the greatest amount of power possible in an extremely compact footprint.
Mundt added, “Calrec provides the perfect mixing desk for the confined space and unpredictable demands of mobile television.”
