Carolina Panthers Upgrade Video and Audio Control Rooms to HD

By Andrew Lippe

The NFL’s Carolina
Panthers, with the help of SE Systems and
Norm Getz and Associates

, recently upgraded the video
and audio control rooms in Bank of America Stadium in
Charlotte
,
NC

to
high definition. “We redid our infrastructure so we could handle both
HD and SD,” says Berkley Dickens, broadcast engineer for the Panthers.
The upgrade began when the Panthers installed a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision scoreboard.
Norm Getz and Associates managed the control-room upgrade. It
includes a complete renovation of the room with Dell flat-screen displays,
Evertz multi-viewers, a Pro-Bel routing system, and a Riedel intercom
system. The control room relies on a Ross Vision switcher and control
panel. “The biggest issue I have right now,” says Dickens, “is that I
still have some legacy analog products.”
SE Systems revamped the stadium wireless communications with the use of Shure Beta 87C microphones and a Shure PSM 700 monitoring system. Four handheld mics are on the field along with two UR1M micro body packs.
For Cliff Miller, founder and owner of SE Systems the big question is how long the systems will be viable as the FCC is poised to allow unlicensed consumer devices into the White Spaces spectrum.
“I hope the FCC will realize that wireless microphones are a part of our everyday life,” says Miller. “If we do not have some protected space, we are going to be in big trouble.”