Taiwan PTS Selects Clear-Com Eclipse and Tempest for HD Operations

Taiwan Public Television Service Staff Coordinates HD Delivery Using Clear-Com Intercoms

Clear-Com® is pleased to announce that Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation (Taiwan PTS), an independent public broadcast institution in Taiwan, has chosen the Clear-Com Eclipse-Median digital matrix and Tempest®2400 digital wireless intercoms to help its employees coordinate the delivery of HDTV experience to viewers. The Eclipse-Median’s 192-port connectivity and ease-of-integration with other intercom systems and Tempest 2400’s capacity to operate flawlessly in environments with RF and Wi-Fi devices ensures fast access to reliable, high-quality communications for Taiwan PTS workers.

The ability of Clear-Com intercom equipment to easily integrate with Taiwan PTS’s existing communications equipment has vastly simplified critical communications between staff members who are coordinating HD programming. When upgrading to HD operations, Taiwan PTS’s goal was to integrate its existing Clear-Com Eclipse-Median system and party-line interface with six new Median frames, 45 additional V-Series intercom control panels and a Tempest2400 wireless intercom system to achieve full-duplex communication. These additions helped to further establish a two-way communications channel between any intercom station in its sub-control rooms.

“Since the Eclipse system is easily expandable and very compatible with the Tempest systems, it makes for a very dynamic and flexible communications environment for Taiwan PTS,” says Daniel Tsai, sales manager Broadcasting Dept. of IX Technology – A Linfair Engineering Group company, the largest professional sound and lighting supplier in Taiwan and the company that integrated the Clear-Com equipment for Taiwan PTS. “Having Tempest in the studio is very convenient, because staff members can grab a beltpack when they need it, and it works, regardless of the number of cell phones or Wi-Fi devices operating on the premise. At the same time, the Eclipse, along with the V-Series control panels, allows for a great number of connections between those within the studio and control rooms.”

For its communications setup, Taiwan PTS utilizes 13 connected Eclipse-Median frames, which interface with V-Series intercom panels, Clear-Com SOFT-VoICE virtual panels, and Tempest beltpacks.  Via a LAN-based VoIP interface, the Clear-Com SOFT-VoICE virtual panels allow those on desktop computers in the facility to communicate within the Eclipse environment. The majority of the 113 V-Series intercom panels in use by Taiwan PTS are located in the sub-control room and allow all call signals and voices to be displayed on the panel through a real-time dual-fiber optic network. Employees in the Taiwan PTS studio use the Tempest2400, which operates in the 2.4GHz frequency band. Five full-duplex wireless beltpacks can operate on one base station, with the ability to add an unlimited number of beltpacks to the system to monitor conversations.

“We believe that strong connectivity and interoperability plays a big role in establishing a strong communications backbone, which is why Clear-Com intercom systems are designed to work well with each other and third-party communications solutions,” says  Edmund Song, Regional Sales Manager, Southeast Asia, Clear-Com. “It’s very gratifying that Taiwan PTS has found this to be exactly the case, utilizing Eclipse, V-Series and Tempest in conjunction to form a robust, full-duplex communications network that is ushering them into the age of HD. We are proud that such a prestigious and forward-thinking broadcast institution has chosen our products.”

The industry’s first point-to-point intercom platform capable of seamlessly integrating with digital wireless beltpacks and IP-based software intercoms, Clear-Com’s Eclipse digital matrix intercoms provide a flexible and scalable foundation for point-to-point and group-based multi-connections. Eclipse supports as few as 36 on a single matrix frame or as many as 3120 user connections on a networked system platform.  Complimenting Eclipse are the V-Series intercom user control panels featuring cutting-edge Digital Signal Processing, 10-character display, Listen Again memory and native IP technology.

Tempest2400, now available in two- and four-channel versions, offers users unprecedented access to license-free communications. Utilizing patented Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum radio technology to ensure robust, reliable communications, the Tempest system operates license-free in the 2.4 GHz band worldwide, allowing interference-free communications even in environments heavily populated by other RF devices. The system also offers users three modes of operation – Normal, Shared and Split. Normal mode allows for five full-duplex (simultaneous talk and listen) BeltStations per BaseStation. With Shared mode, all of the BeltStations can utilize the dual listen/talk feature. Users can individually select which channels they listen and talk to just like in Normal mode; however, only five BeltStations may have talk enabled at any one time. If a sixth BeltStation tries to talk, the user will receive a busy signal. In Split Mode, users operate in a combination of the other two modes: Normal and Shared, offering the use of four BeltStations that utilizes the standard anytime talk back capability and an unlimited number of BeltStations sharing one talk path at any given time.