Calrec Zeta consoles supplied to Hong Kong racecourses
Published: ASIA
CHINA: Hong Kong’s Sha Tin and Happy Valley racecourses have been supplied with Calrec Zeta consoles for their respective broadcast facilities following the installation of AES and digital cabling based infrastructures. The consoles were supplied by Hong Kong distributor Jolly Pro Audio.
Together with Sha Tin Racecourse, Happy Valley Racecourse is one of two horseracing tracks operated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Named after the marshy, paddy fields that occupied the same location in the nineteenth century, the courses represent something of an anomaly in a densely populated, mostly residential suburb. Originally built in 1846 and redeveloped in 1995, they serve a racing season in Hong Kong that runs twice a week from early September to late July the following year, contributing 11.7 per cent of Hong Kong's tax revenue.
Key to that revenue draw are the broadcasting and multimedia facilities managed by the Jockey Club. The races are broadcast live to TV stations such as ATV and cable TV in Hong Kong as well as overseas to countries such as Canada and Singapore. In addition, over 100 off-course betting branches of the Club are served by an IP-based live radio broadcast during opening hours. The live broadcasts are also played out live to the punters in the stadium and at the trackside. A 30km fibre optic link has been established between Sha Tin and Happy Valley allowing both racetracks to take each others live feeds, thus ensuring more betting takes place between races. Broadcasts are made in Cantonese, English and Mandarin and all three take their feeds from individual broadcasting consoles within each racecourse.
However, the long season means that Happy Valley and Sha Tin are possibly the busiest racing meets in the world, with some 83 days of racing held there every year. As a result, little time is left for the maintenance and service teams to upgrade systems and infrastructures during the six to seven week summer lull. The installation of the new consoles follows the 2006 replacement of the courses’ original analogue desks in favour of digital Zeta 100 40-channel strip consoles, while the new Zeta mixers have been added for English and Cantonese language broadcasts.
‘We like the functionality of the Zeta,’ commented Shui Kin Yeung, audio and visual operations manager for the Hong Kong Jockey Club. ‘Not only that, but the control rooms at both race courses are limited, so we required a compact, modular work surface to be integrated and the Zeta is perfect for our needs. It also needed to be flexible, which it is.’ Features include dynamics on every channel, eight auxes, 12 multitrack/IFB sends, 99 Flash ROM setup memories, integrated internal routing and 5.1 surround monitoring.
Within this installation, the four principle outputs of the main Zeta 100 console consist of the three languages together with an ambient background sound taking its feed from the racetrack itself. A large quantity of Sennheiser MKH60 shotgun microphones are positioned around the track at varying intervals according to the length of race taking place and discretely concealed in green customised Rycote windshield casings. Green Canare microphone cables further enhance the effect. The resultant surround mix is made on the master console and added to the language of choice.
Located one kilometre away at the opposite end of the grandstand, the post production studio at Happy Valley is linked to the main broadcasting suite via Cat-5 cabling. Commercials, jingles and promotions are created here using Pyramix, Pro Tools and Sadie before being routed to the main control room for transmission. Evertz 7800FR multi-frames provide all the audio and video processing and distribution requirements, but when the video programmes are shut down, the audio system cannot operate in isolation. As a result, Mr Yeung and his team opted to implement a Digigram ES8 out EtherSound system should the engineers require an audio only broadcast feed.