SoundField DSF-2 Provides 5.1 Audio for NEP Visions

NEP Visions has been using SoundField s DSF-2 digital microphone to provide 5.1 audio on its HD transmissions for a variety of projects, including the international feed for May s European Champions League football final in Moscow and regular coverage of
UK football Premier League and Championship matches for Sky Sports.
NEP Visions has also been working with SoundField s DSF-3 digital processor, and it forms the basis for the 5.1 surround-sound audio feed that NEP Visions supplies to their HD broadcast clients.
We undertook trials of several different systems in the days before regular HD broadcast services were launched, trying to find the best way to produce an HD-compatible 5.1 audio feed for use with our HD broadcast clients like Sky Sports, says Neville Hooper, deputy head of sound for NEP Visions. We just weren t happy with some of the cheaper multi-capsule solutions, which produced all types of phase problems when the surround-sound signals were folded down to stereo. But SoundField s system behaves like a point-source microphone, produces no phase artifacts, and gives you a simultaneous, phase-coherent stereo signal, which is essential because stereo is still the most important standard for nearly every mainstream broadcaster. The DSF-2 gave us the best results of all the systems we tried.
Another thing that really appealed to us from the start with the DSF-2 was the distance over which it would operate, Hooper continues. Sky has permanently installed DSF-2s in optimal positions at several UK football stadiums, but, in some international venues we ve been working in, we ve had to mount the DSF-2 microphone 800 to 900 meters from our OB vehicle. Nevertheless, we ve never had any technical trouble. That s one of the benefits of using a digital microphone for this kind of application. And now, he adds, with the DSF-3 processors coming in from Sky, we can produce a direct-to-digital 5.1 stream.