Universal Remote.tv mixes PFT audio remotely with Calrec

The audio of one of the days of the Professional Fighters League (PFL) was mixed remotely thanks to a successful proof of concept in which Universal Remote.tv relied on the Type R mixing system from Calrec.

The founders of Universal Remote.tv Sean O’Gorman y Shawn Peacock, after several years providing audio mixing, networking and equipment provision services to PFL, have carried out a proof of concept to shed light on what it would be like to carry out mobile unit audio mixing capabilities directly to the location you are in the engineer designated for the project.

The production company decided to rely on technology Calrec for this project: “The technology of the Type R, “as it makes it economically viable to send the control surfaces to wherever the A1 is, as they can install the core of the audio mix in the control room at home,” says Peacock.

An interesting approach to this proof of concept from Universal Remote.tv is the fact that its scheme does not involve sending audio signals to a console remotely, but rather the control signals. This way, the only audio that has to reach the A1 is the one that reaches its monitors and these control signals do not affect the transmission.

Taking audio out of the mobile unit

For this proof of concept, Calrec provided several control surfaces Type R. As O'Gorman explains: "Setup is minimal. There's a router, a POE (power over Ethernet) switch, and then you plug and play, and an A1 is online through our VPN."

Its workflow was not extremely complex either, given that the Type R was integrated into the network of Universal Remote.tv through Dante. The producer used a low latency codec compatible con WAN to send the control room output of that core to the engineer back home. With a 175 ms fixed latency, the entire workflow was transferred over a public internet and a VPN.

The balance of this project has been very positive. In the words of O’Gorman: "We want to maximize the time that experienced engineers are sitting behind a console and minimize the time they are sitting on an airplane. Our goal is to bring the work, tools and resources closer to experienced A1s (...). The modularity and flexibility of the Type R is very suitable for this and the support of both Calrec and PFL has been invaluable in this project."