Red Dragon FM, part of the Capital Group, serves the South Wales area from a state of the art new digital broadcasting facility based in the Cardiff Bay development area of the city. The premises are very impressive both in terms of appearance and technology, with 2 programme preparation areas and 4 live studio areas. The apparatus room houses all the noisier equipment and also the equipment that is superfluous to the immediate needs of the presenter making his broadcast.
A modern broadcast environment such as Red Dragon FM demands high levels of integration and performance from its equipment. Additionally, as technology becomes more and more sophisticated this has to be juggled with ease of use, as many of the presenters who are not technically minded need to be able to operate this equipment simply and effectively.
Many of the commercials, news items and voice-overs are produced externally to the studio and relayed back through extensive use of ISDN. 5 codecs, each with an individual line, are managed by an ARC Multi-Master ISDN control system together with the ARC AkCESS software, both produced by Nicral, which is now owned by Sonifex Ltd. Both of these products balance simplicity of use with sophisticated technology beautifully.
The ARC Multi-Master is capable of controlling up to 16 codecs as simply as picking up a telephone. All the mechanics of the ISDN connection, including which codec to use, which algorithm mode to set, data rate, etc, are all controlled automatically in the background by the equipment. Additionally, the PC based ARC AkCESS audio routing and control software allows each studio to see the current status of every codec and to access a free codec, which then automatically is locked out from other users so that they cannot inadvertently interrupt a recording or broadcast.
Chief Engineer at Red Dragon FM, Simon Price commented "I had used the ARC Multi-Master system before, so when it came to looking for an ISDN system for our new building I knew that the system could do everything we wanted and more! This combined with the flexibility of the ARC AkCESS software means that all our studio users can easy use ISDN. "
The ARC Multi-Master and AkCESS software are only a small part of the impressive set up at Red Dragon but play an influential part in the success and quality of its broadcasts.
The Nicral range of ISDN codecs and ISDN codec control systems was taken over by Sonifex Ltd on May 1st 2001. Contact Sonifex on 01933 650 700 for further information.
