"Historically, we've supplied Eastlink with Clearcomm intercoms," explains Gerr's Andrew Hope. "So when they were kitting out the new HD mobile, which is a big step up for them as a regional television provider, they came to talk to us about it.
"Of course, I looked around and said 'so what else are you going to put in this truck...?'. We ended up supplying a large part of the audio system, with CEV in Montreal handling the integration. The centrepiece is the SD10B."
Eastlink had also done a considerable amount of research into console options in preparation for the build, having explored different products over three years of visits to the NAB show in the US.
"We decided to go with the DiGiCo console because of its reputation and price point," says Kaushal Hathi, operations manager at Eastlink. "It provides a big bang for the buck, which meant we didn't have to sacrifice quality for price.
"I had always thought of DiGiCo as producing live event consoles until I was introduced to the SD10B. Since this console is to be used for different types of events, from sports to music, we were impressed with the versatility it offers."
One of Eastlink's first outings with the SD10B was at the East Coast Music Awards Gala event at the beginning of March, which included 12 live musical acts. The broadcast mix was handled entirely by the console, and Kaushal reports that the entire mobile unit performed just as it was designed to do.
(Jim Evans)
