South Africa’s e.tv Embraces Solid State Logic System T for its Daily Broadcast Operations

“The systems are networked in a redundant private Dante network within the same building,” says Lwazi November, e.tv studio manager and engineer. “To put the audio from the C10 on the Dante network we also have a MADI bridge and four SDI I/Os for the studio using that console.”

The eMedia head office building, which opened in Hyde Park in 2015, houses three multifunction studios. “Each studio has an acoustically treated, double volume studio floor, acoustically treated audio control booth, monitoring and a vision control room,” November says. The two System Ts, which are in separate control rooms associated with two of the studios, are primarily used for news broadcasts and popular shows such as The South African Morning and All Angles. The main studio is live for 18 hours a day.

SSL’s broadcast partner in South Africa, professional solutions company Hi-Tech Audio, supplied the System T components. UK-based broadcast systems specialist Megahertz Ltd., which has been working with e.tv for about two decades, including relocating the broadcaster’s production facilities in 2015 and integrated the new SSL systems at eMedia’s studios.

“Mojalefa Ramatladi and Lutendo Lambani, both e.tv broadcast engineers, were pivotal in the initial setup and overseeing training,” November adds. “Operational acceptance testing was done by audio mixers Sammy Musepa and Orefile Mmutlana.”

Having now had a chance to spend some time on the System T desks, e.tv’s mixers have come to appreciate a number of their features, November reports. They especially enjoy the ease of configuration provided by the simple navigation menu, he says, as well as the dynamic positioning of the processing on the individual channels and the available standard effects racks.