Mediatec Asia Pacific Relies on Ross Video’s Ultrix During Australian Open

Mediatec Asia Pacific, Australia’s premier A/V solution provider for event and television productions, wrapped up the Australian Open Tennis Tournament this past January using Ross Video’s powerful Ultrix routing switcher platform.

Mediatec used Ultrix to distribute live feeds across the eight control rooms used during the tournament for stadium production and patron screens. They needed the ability to route video together with the audio that was being processed in their audio console to these remote areas – as well as monitor these feeds from their Master Control Room.

“With Ultrix, we were able to take video feeds, and separate audio sources from our mixing console, multiplex them together inside the router, and then send out a single video feed with new embedded audio. The integrated Ultriscape multi-viewer, allowed us to monitor these feeds.,” explains Steve Letch. “All this was accomplished within the same Ultrix chassis.  This saved a substantial amount of equipment, cabling and setup.”

The Ultrix platform provided Mediatec with the flexibility required to successfully cover the Australian Open. Because Ultrix’s features can be added via software, without requiring additional specialized hardware, Ultrix provides Mediatec the means to modify their frames as needed – based on the applications they are being deployed into.

“The flexible design of Ultrix, allows us to purchase base hardware, and then add features we need via software licenses at any time,” continues Letch. “Technically we are always looking to simplify our system design, in terms of how it’s operated and maintained. Because Ultrix can support video and audio routing, embedding/deembedding, discrete audio and multiviewers all in 1 or 2RU chassis sizes, it brings down our complexity significantly. It’s easy to operate, and our maintenance and engineering staff has a much simpler job wiring, configuring, and maintaining the system.”

“We are pleased that Mediatec chose to use Ultrix for their first time at such a high profile event.  The power and flexibility of the system were on display, and really showcased the design goals of the platform, which are to allow customers simpler, more powerful, and more flexible productions,” says Todd Riggs, Business Development Manager, Ross Video.