VIDELIO-Events + Utram Relies on Riedel MediorNet for French Reality TV Show

Riedel Communications announced VIDELIO-Events + Utram have set up a solution using Riedel MediorNet for “La Maison du Bluff,” a French reality TV program produced by Kawa Production. The idea of using the MediorNet solution was immediately appealing to Frederic Redondo, director of Pole TV & Sport for VIDELIO-Events + Utram, and Eric Montet, chief technical officer at Kawa Production, as a way to optimize the production. 

Long cabling distances and the need for different zones to collect signals required the installation of optical links. Since the solution could not be limited by a point-to-point approach, a ring topology was used to connect the video control room to various points inside and outside the villa. In addition to saving set-up time, this topology would also enable the necessary integrated redundancies. Therefore, VIDELIO-Events + Utram wanted a flexible cabling solution that could support ring, star, or daisy-chain topologies according to changing production requirements.

MediorNet’s ability to manage the real-time transport of all the signals including cameras, video, audio, data, sync, and intercom was crucial. The mobility of the external production zones mandated a solution that was portable, easy to operate, and completely plug-and-play.

Another benefit of using the MediorNet solution was its capacity to manage routing in a point-to-point as well as point-to-multipoint fashion for each video or audio source on the network. In this way, the MediorNet operates as a powerful, decentralized router.

Signal processing tools such as embedder/de-embedder, frame store/frame sync, test signal generator, and timecode generator are all built into the MediorNet system. The ability to create quad-splits and perform video format conversions also represented a major benefit for VIDELIO.

VIDELIO-Events + Utram used Riedel’s RockNet to enable audio transport over Cat5 cabling that also interfaced directly with the MediorNet system. The MediorNet backbone also carried signals from Riedel’s Artist digital matrix intercom and keypanels as well as antenna signals for its Acrobat wireless intercom system.

“The major difficulty with this project was the long distances between the heart of our infrastructure, i.e. the video control area, and the production zones inside and outside the villa,” said Redondo. “The production company wanted the ability to shoot in different spots such as the swimming pool. This is why we designed the MediorNet racks on casters that also included our Sony HDCE-200 and HDC-2400 cameras connected through the network. It goes without saying that the MediorNet solution allowed us to significantly optimize our installation time as well as our production workflow over this vast production area.”