The 102nd edition of the world's biggest cycling contest will take 22 teams of nine riders - a field of up to 198 starters - over 3,360km of road, through 21 stages in the Netherlands, Belgium and France. After starting in the Dutch city of Utrecht on 4 July 2015, the tour will close in its traditional manner on 26 July, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
The new Euromedia OB hybrid production vehicle C42 supports 10 to 12 cameras, and is designed specifically to meet the demands of sports, variety, games and entertainment production. On the Tour de France, it will co-ordinate all the RF audio feeds before forwarding them to the truck responsible for the international broadcast feed. It is also able to provide an emergency backup in the case of any failure.
The OB will accompany the riders at every stage of the race, with its Lawo V - pro8 video processor unit that will be used for colour correction of the video signals received from the motorcycle camera teams. The sound mix will be performed on a 48-fader Lawo mc²56 audio mixing console with a space-saving 7U compact core providing 144 DSP channels and a capacity of 5120 x 5120 crosspoints in redundant operation.
Three DALLIS frames - two for use as stageboxes outside the vehicle - will provide the necessary I/O. Overall control of the devices will be assigned to an L-S-B Virtual Studio Manager (VSM) System, managing communication and switching of units from different manufacturers serving a range of functions.
(Jim Evans)
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