DiGiCo consoles help modernize Boston College

Two SD10B and one SD9B system DiGiCo form a networked audio infrastructure that makes Boston BC one of the key nodes of the ACC sports network.

As part of its continuous modernization process, he Boston College has installed two consoles DiGiCo SD10B.

Located in the central press room, between basketball/hockey stadium, Tale Forum, with capacity for 8.600 spectators; and the Alumni football stadium, with capacity for 44.500 spectators, They replace the two SD9B consoles previously installed and have become the main mixing and processing platforms for sports broadcasts from these centers over the Atlantic Coast Conference network (ACC), a channel that broadcasts hundreds of league sporting events each year from the schools that comprise it.

Each SD10B of 37 faders are shown as the main console of each of the two control rooms of the multimedia suite. One of the SD9B consoles 24 Previously installed faders are now located in a separate control room, Known locally as 'The Eagles' Nest', in reference to the pet of BC, the eagle baldwin.

This third control room is typically used to produce the in-game experience at both venues., the Alumni Stadium and the Conte Forum. Here the content for the videoboards is produced Daktronics and for public address systems, manufactured by local companies Fulcrum Acoustic for Alumni Stadium and Bose for the Conte Forum.

“Despite having a smaller audio console, This control room is almost as capable as the other two, with just a few key differences, like the audio console is not in a separate mixing room”, comment Adam Ferguson, BC Broadcast engineer. “The Nido de Águilas control room can continue to be used to produce emissions, and in fact it has been used to simultaneously produce the broadcast and the on-site show. The remaining SD9B solution is used as a spare when necessary”.

There are two MQ-Racks of DiGiCo equipped with MADI for the SD10B and a D-Rack for the SD9B. The multimedia suite and its control rooms were designed by the systems design company Idibri, a company of Salas O’Brien, and installed by the systems integrator Diversified. The Boston College technical team chose the DiGiCo tables from a very short list of consoles recommended by the ACC Network, which is associated with the sports television network ESPN.

The ACC Network is an association of 11 colleges and universities united in a broadcast network sharing their individual media facilities. Founded in 2019 as part of a $1 billion deal with ESPN and 12 years of emission rights, member schools have created space in current structures, and in some cases they have built new, to create and host state-of-the-art media facilities with multiple control rooms with screen-covered walls and studios with green screen backdrops. The designs varied, with the only basic requirement of the collective mission of guaranteeing the ability to manage a linear emission.

DiGiCo consoles have been fundamental for this project. The three are connected in a network through a loop Optocore, allowing complete interoperability between control rooms, ACC headquarters and network.

DiGiCo consoles are connected to a native Optocore network via single-mode fiber, while the router uses MADI natively. This is due to a number of factors, such as the ACC network's recommendation to use baseband routers Evertz, that use SDI and MADI natively.

“With Dante devices such as belt-packs RTS intercom, announcer consoles Studio Technology and preamps ANI22-XLR also Shure, we can provide all the necessary power and signal to portable devices through a single Ethernet cable. Anywhere we can connect a device to our Dante network via Ethernet, These smart network devices will turn on themselves and automatically remember all your designated routes, both inputs and outputs. This simplifies our workflow, “It reduces the number of cables we need to connect devices that travel frequently and has been instrumental in expanding our connectivity across several remote campuses via fiber.”, adds Ferguson

With all the necessary conversion between MADI, Dante and Optocore, BC also trusts Orange Boxes by DiGiCo, what, when equipped with a DMI-Opto card, become routable I/O on all consoles in the Optocore loop.

Following the initial construction of the ACC Network control room in the summer of 2018, BC has its own terrestrial fiber network for ACC Network transmission operations, which extends for several kilometers and connects the Alumni/Conte complex, the baseball/football fields on the Brighton campus, the soccer and field hockey fields on the Law School campus in Newton Center and, recently, the new Connell Recreation Center, which is where the volleyball and fencing coverage moved starting this year.