PRESS RELEASE
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Tel: (615) 662-1616
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Music City’s Annual “Iroquois Day” Steeplechase
Takes LightViper™ Fiber Optics Off To The Races— LightViper™ fiber optic “audio snake” helps deliver high-quality sound to
annual Nashville, Tennessee Society Horse Racing Fundraiser —
NBC affiliate, WSMV, broadcasts all-day event to Middle TN —
NASHVILLE, TN, May 14, 2005 — FiberPlex, Inc., a world leader in fiber optic data communications, announced that its versatile LightViper™ VIS-1832 fiber-optic professional audio snake system was utilized for this year’s Iroquois Steeplechase Races at Nashville’s largest outdoor public venue, Percy Warner Park. The annual open-air charity event features Grade 1 horse racing (six events across a 3-mile turf course) with this year’s aggregate purse of $345,000 donated to nearby and world-famous Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. The event, established in 1941, has been a high-profile fund-raiser for the local University-affiliated hospital since 1981. The 64th-running, single-day event on Saturday, May 14, 2005, drew approximately 20,000 people and was broadcast live on Nashville’s NBC-affiliate, WSMV-TV.Durrell Sports, a Nashville, TN-based audio production company that specializes in complex sporting events production, handled all aspects of the extensive sound system provisioning. The important weekend’s festivities gave the company its first opportunity to deploy the sophisticated LightViper fiber-optic audio distribution system.
“I was really excited to use the new LightViper fiber optic audio snake for this high-profile event. We were dealing with unusually long distances as well as pretty complex signal routing,” says Durrell Sports’ President and Audio Chief for the large gig, John Horrell. “The WSMV-TV truck was stationed on the track’s infield and various announce booth positions were sprinkled all along trackside; similar to our work last year for the Steeplechase, all live audio ran through the large outdoor park’s main audio mix-position which is located in a permanent tower positioned in the middle of Grandstand seating. From this audio and video ‘treehouse’ — as well as other announce locations — we had to both receive and send numerous wireless and hard-wired audio signals back and forth to the broadcast truck.”
The audio run handled by the LightViper fiber optic audio snake was approximately 1,200 feet between the two critical audio production positions.
When recounting the successful show, Horrell enthused: “One of the biggest advantages we had at this year’s event was the elimination of nasty ground loops caused by the different power generators; with fiber optics handling the audio distribution, the sound was completely isolated from hum, crackles and pops — it was very clean and quiet. Even the lightning strikes courtesy of the thundershowers that afternoon didn’t get into the audio! The LightViper performed flawlessly. As advertised, it provided us and NBC’s team with absolutely superb and reliable on-air sound quality.
“Another huge advantage to using the system was in my labor savings. For independent contractors like us, the weight factor and labor costs associated with conventional copper audio distribution to set-up and strike a show can really eat into our profits. At this year’s Iroquois, in the time it took to run over one thousand feet of coax for just one camera, the entire audio chain had been unreeled from a single spool of fiber cable!”
Horrell continued: “It’s hard to imagine doing these large-scale shows now any other way; it takes only a fraction of the normal time allotted to deploy the audio runs. To me, that’s as significant as the performance factor.”
The basic LightViper 32 x 8 snake system is made up of two pieces of hardware: the VIS-1832 “stage box,” and the VIM-1832 mix position box. Connecting these two components is an extremely lightweight military specification fiber optic cable. Two LightViper fiber optic snakes and stage boxes provide a total of 64 x 16 inputs/outputs available at the mix position. Optional optical outputs on the stage box allow for up to three splits; provision for a remote truck (recording and/or OB) and an FOH and monitor console split is automatically built into the system.
The LightViper VIS stage boxes and the VIM mix position units handle all analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog signal conversions for the mic and tie lines, with the VIM’s routing to the analog inputs of a digital console which, in turn, performs its own A-to-D conversion. Runs of up to 6,600 feet without signal loss or degradation are possible with fiber cable, and it is inherently immune to ground loops, RFI, EMI and electromechanical noise. The fiber connection also maintains the gain structure of the line level signal on stage.
Durrell Sports intends to deploy the LightViper system into other future mission-critical broadcast and live-sound assignments.
FiberPlex includes a lifetime limited warranty with all its LightViper system hardware components.
The suggested Professional Audio user price for a typical LightViper VIS-1832 configuration is $8,646.00; this includes all components (one Stage unit [VIS-1832] and one Mix position 1U rack unit [VIM-1832]), 300 feet of fiber optic cable, four 10-foot sends and one 10-foot return breakout cables and a hand reel for the fiber optic cable. A wall mount enclosure for fixed installations is available (VBZ-1832) at $194.00.
With Photos (Racecourse.jpg and Fibertruck.jpg)
...ends 783 wordsAdditional information can be obtained at www.fiberplex.com or www.lightviper.com.
NOTE: LightViper™ is a registered trademark of FiberPlex, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
—For more information, contact Ron Neilson, Neilson/Clyne, Inc.: Tel: (615) 274-2263;
Fax: (615) 274-2595; Email: rneilson@neilsonclyne.com; Web: www.neilsonclyne.com.
Copyright ©2005, Neilson/Clyne, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
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