LightViper Fiber Optic Audio Snake System Handles New Year's ABC Sports Telecast
Annapolis, MD - FiberPlex, Inc., a fiber optic supplier to the professional audio industry, announced that its LightViper VIS-1832 fiber optic audio snake was used for the January 3rd Orange Bowl live broadcast of the pre-game and halftime entertainment festivities. Live audio for both house sound and a broadcast remix was fed to ABC Sports by LD Systems, a sound production company based in Houston, TX, contracted to provide all music production audio.
Robert Ausmus, a principal as well as the audio chief for the LD Systems team, was enthusiastic about his first experience with the LightViper fiber optic snake: "I was extremely pleased with how well the LightViper performed overall; there were absolutely no problems, no glitches whatever. The optical fiber cable ran to our TV ‘broadcast mixdown console' inside the stadium approximately 1,000 feet away from our FOH mixing and monitoring position on the field [located in a baseball dugout]. We started with an analog split from a conventional snake at the stage and then utilized 24 of the 32 inputs provided on the LightViper fiber optic ‘head' and further split what was needed for both our FOH and stage monitoring needs as well as sending the separate multi-channel feed ABC Sports required. Front-of-house and the broadcast mix were handled by Yamaha PM5D digital consoles. The audio quality was excellent."
LD Systems monitor engineer and Systems Tech for the gig, Kelly Jones, added: "The LightViper snake solved one of our bigger headaches for this show which was the very long run to the broadcast mixer's remote location. The terminations into both digital consoles for live PA and the audio master control feed to the broadcast remote truck went without a hitch; the new optical audio path was ‘invisible' and performed flawlessly. I can't imagine doing a critical job like this now with a conventional copper snake. The LightViper saved us a lot of time during set-up too."
The FiberPlex LightViper VIS-1832 consists of a "traditional" and highly compact 32 X 8 audio input Stage Box and a complementary 1U rack unit (Model VIM-1832) located at the main house audio mixing position. Connecting these two components is accomplished with a rugged and extremely lightweight "tactical grade" military specification fiber optic cable weighing less than two (2) pounds per one hundred feet (100') of cable run.
LightViper's fiber optic cable offers total signal path isolation between stage and mixer as well as between the stage and all splits; the cable is totally immune to ground loops, RFI, EMI and electromechanical noise, and runs of up to 1 1/4 miles (6,600 feet) can be easily accomplished without signal loss or degradation.
The inputs on the audio input stage box will accept balanced or unbalanced XLR or TRS mic or line level audio and eliminate the need for expensive DI boxes. Industry standard 48-Volt phantom power is supplied to all audio mic inputs. Two optional optical outputs on the Stage unit allow for a separate stage monitor feed as well as sending the audio data signal to a remote broadcast or recording vehicle (one main feed and two "splits" in total).
Pristine-quality Burr-Brown A/D converters are built-in to the LightViper and operate at 24-bit/96 kHz sampling. The resulting multiplexed digital signal is transmitted via the optical cable on a single fiber pair.
The system also features a rugged Neutrik PowerCon connector (stage box) and synchronization to Word Clock as well as "Superclock."
FiberPlex includes a limited lifetime warranty with all VIS-1832 system hardware components.
SOURCE: Neilson/Clyne, Inc.