Game Creek Video selects Riedel FusioN IP gateways for its new mobile units

Riedel's MediorNet FusioN standalone IP converters power full SMPTE ST 2110-based signal processing in its five new mobile units.

The American Game Creek Video has launched four new mobile units in the last year, with a fifth almost completed, relying on the ultra-dense IP gateway solutions of Riedel Communications for connectivity between trucks.

Stand-alone IP converters MediorNet FusioN from Riedel drive complete signal processing based on SMPTE ST 2110 in its five new mobile units.

Game Creek's five new mobile installations are 16-meter expandable systems and represent a significant innovation in mobile production by deploying a complete remote IP installation on a single truck, thereby eliminating the need for a secondary B-unit for on-site support.
Bravo and Columbia, Game Creek Video's first two mobile installations featuring Riedel's IP infrastructure solutions, launched in late 2019, with Gridiron A, Gridiron B and Celtic following earlier this year.

Bravo and Gridiron are dedicated to covering the NFL and college football for Fox Sports, while CBS Sports has reserved Columbia and Celtic for its NFL and college basketball broadcasts. Gotham, the truck currently in development, will enable MSG Networks' coverage of New York Rangers hockey and New York Knicks basketball games.

Keith Martin, engineering project manager at Game Creek Video, says, "With Bravo, we took a significant new direction in our facility design by trying to achieve full IP workflows within the footprint of a single mobile unit. Naturally, that meant finding robust, effective solutions that could also perform as well as possible while meeting the space limitations and weight restrictions of a 53-foot truck."

"Not only do Riedel MediorNet devices check all those boxes, but as native IP and 2110 solutions, they allow us to maximize all the benefits of IP operations, including lower cost per route, reduced setup time, connectivity to our legacy assets, and overall simplicity of deployment. Additionally, Riedel equipment is renowned for its robustness and reliability, a critical factor as equipment in any type of mobile installation takes a real beating in a typical broadcast year," he adds.

Resource optimization

Aboard each unit are deployed 16 gateways Riedel MediorNet FusioN 6 high density and of the 2-RU MediorNet MBR 18 chassis, which work in combination to create a pair of truck-to-truck interfaces, known as Game Creek Video T2T, each allowing support of up to 32 x 32 optical video paths. This equipment from Riedel effectively reduces up to 128 strands of fiber cable to just eight, greatly simplifying each production and reducing points of failure.

The T2T interface MediorNet-based technology also creates seamless, vendor-agnostic connectivity between the five new trucks and Game Creek Video's fleet of SDI baseband installations, eliminating the need to convert SDI signals from electrical copper to fiber optic and then back again. Using a 25-gigabit Ethernet interface, FusioN gateways can transport signals on the SMPTE ST 2110 network and then send them as CWDM wavelength SDI directly to legacy equipment on a baseband bus.

"The ability to not only interconnect any of our 2110-based facilities with each other, but with any of our traditional baseband SDI mobile facilities, brings incredible flexibility to every production and allows us to maximize investment across our entire vehicle fleet. But the main reason we leaned on Riedel for the T2T interface is the incredible versatility of the solution. In one box, we have a complete solution for handling SDI, wavelength CWDM, and the other complexities of the “In addition, the Riedel team was exceptional in working with us, helping us conceptualize and then realize a new approach that replaced the products we had long relied on,” adds Martin.