Mobile television stations by Elvia (Czech Republic)

By Vladislav Nadkha

Many Russian specialists consider Czech MTSs a kind of exotics. But for such short period — about 10 years, Czechia has begun quick moving towards democratic transformations and technological progress. Geographical location of the country has played its role: Czechia is situated in the center of Europe being intermediate link between developed West and yet developing East (still it is point at issue). Most likely, the main reason of such a quick development lies in great interest of western countries in Czechia. First, it is a new market, second, it makes quite low living standards and, correspondingly, large labor market being enlarged mostly by western manpower. From the other side, evaluating the country’s intellectual potential, one will hardly grade positive mark. Modern Czech youth are not eager to work as engineers, astronauts, pilots or PC operators. They will rather choose more simple and cozy posts, such as waiter or headwaiter, thus there is quite big problem with technical manpower. Another problem lies in lack of middle manager link for such management class has not yet appeared here. Still, functioning of government services and establishments is arranged here very well.

Meanwhile, for the last 10 years in Czechia there appeared several companies with good intellectual basis and technical features. Undoubtedly, this process had the same evolution as that in Russia: former members of research institutes would found private companies on the ruins of tumbledown establishments. Some companies would grow and develop, other would weaken and fall down, and those who survived went on, Elvia company being a bright example. This is a merit of indomitable energy of Victor Novak, a general president of Elvia company, who also manages two more companies. Victor Novak is a man of great learning who possesses about 150 inventors certificates and patents, understands technique very well, and is able to take literate both technical and management decisions. Elvia company has a long history. In 1991 (two years after “velvet revolution”) there were a building and five employees working in simple principle: “all for video and sound plus service, development, and manufacture”. Having become one of the greatest Sony dealers in Czechia by 19994, the company founded Elvia-Pro daughter company and established a network of common video- and audio technique shops (now they are about 15 in all Czech Republic). After that Elvia purchased territory of computer engineering research institute of several decades of hectares with buildings and constructions where it created a center for manufacturing native products: matrix commutators, module systems, automatic broadcasting systems, special furniture (stands, desks, cases, etc.), organized manufacture of printing boards, and established MEV daughter company. At the same time Elvia together with its daughter companies equipped and re-equipped with professional video and audio equipment practically all video-studios in Czechia and partially in Slovakia. The company was among those who, two years ago, first delivered BVP-E10 video cameras right from the exhibition to the country. It has created a range of special video diagnostic equipment for conduit/gas-main control and atomic stations and developed special GSM- and GPS-signal receivers. Starting from 1994 Elvia has built more than 15 MTSs and autobuses of various purposes. Practically all the company’s workings are of original character and high technological level. It is appropriate to mention here that Elvia company is now getting ISO 9001 quality standard certification.

As this review is devoted to just mobile television stations we will talk about them more particularly. As it was mentioned earlier, for the last seven years Elvia company has manufactured about fifteen mobile stations of different purpose, including four-, six-, and eight-camera MTSs, autobuses for retransmission of TV signals along with sound signals. The company’s developments being broad and us being limited in article’s size, we offer the reader a summary of the features the Elvia MTSs are characterized with.

OB Van with telescopic tower

Autobus for retransmission of TV signals along with sound signals is of keen interest. It is equipped with 21-meter-length hydraulic tower employing special antenna self-pointing head. When the vehicle is at its home fixed with special hydraulic supports, its location is defined with the help of special compass and GPS system. In case the vehicle operates as relay station, the same system may define location of broadcasting/receiving stations. The autobuses usually employ microwave equipment at the band of 2, 7, 15 and 22 GHz. Equipment of MW and DMW bands is available. There provided broadcasting and retransmission simultaneously at four channels: two for receiving and two for transmitting (though combinations may be different). Usually, autobus stores stands with places for broadcasting and receiving equipment, the equipment itself being placed depending on the task put by. It also contains video and audio signals control equipment. Diesel-generator, stored in special soundproof box and installed in back part of the autobus, is used when network power supply is down. Mercedes Sprinter or Vario, Ford, Volkswagen, etc. vehicles may be used as chassis. Broadcasting and transmission equipment occupying not much room, MTS may be equipped with video shooting cameras and necessary devices. In this case MTS’s application abilities becomes wider. In Czech Republic, companies dealing with video shooting and video signal broadcasting are different, and each of them orders mobile stations depending on its task and purpose. Elvia company has developed about seven similar stations, and now the company has signed the contract for manufacturing six more systems.

TV report autobuses designed together with CI-SET company (Holland) make next interesting development of Elvia company. Recently, mobile satellite systems are in great development, and Czech TV manufacture market is not exclusion. That time the company was not good at installing satellite antenna and self-pointing system, that is why the project was realized jointly with CI-SET company (Holland). CI-SET was responsible for setting satellite antenna and self-pointing system, Elvia was responsible for installment of all video production equipment, furniture, diesel-generator, etc. There was applied through SDI technology with post coding into MPEG-2 and record onto Betacam SX video tape recorder and MAV-series disc recorder. There were used Sony DXC-D30 video cameras, Snell & Wilcox video mixer, Yamaha digital audio mixer, distribution amplifiers, matrix commutators, sub-monitor displays, motorized cable reels by Elvia manufacture, etc. The autobus was equipped with automatic pointing system. Here the station’s position and its azimutal location are not important. When the autobus is fixed with hydraulic jacks and the system is set with a task of pointing data of active satellite, the system determines necessary antenna angles and inclines, defines satellite signal and starts broadcasting and receiving signal in up-link mode. The station has standard operating receiving/broadcasting band that is usually defined by the active satellite and channel. The system takes several minutes to get into ready mode. At customer’s option, some stations were equipped with systems of non-linear video edit with LC-monitors. All autobuses employ diesel-generators and Mercedes Sprinter or Mercedes Vario chassis. In total there were manufactured four such stations.

Technical section of Elvia’s Company OB Van

Next in the line of MTSs, developed and manufactured by Elvia company, come four- and six-camera stations. Both variants have the same technology based on Mercedes Benz Atego vehicle. The station total length makes 11,7 m, width — 2,5 m, height — 3,7 m, correspondingly. In each variant body is divided into three sections: video director, sound producer, and engineering. The equipment has standard arrangement — across the body. Video and sound sections employ transparent double window between them. Each variant employs through SDI technology with SDI record onto Digital Betacam video tape recorder and MAV disc recorder. In each variant there was installed two video tape recorders and one disc recorder. Besides, DVS-7150 and DME-3000 blocks of 3-D effects were used as video mixer. Both stations employ Pixel Power Collage character generator. 24-channel analog Studer was used as audio mixer. Both variants employ BVP-570P video cameras with triaxial adapters and camera channels and Leitch 16×16 SDI-matrix as by that moment Elvia matrixes were expressing a number of problems. By now Elvia company offers to its customers wide variety of matrix commutators. Monitor stand of video directo section holds 20 monitors of 9“, 14”, and 20". Over-commutation of monitors was realized with the help of PAL 32×32 matrix commutator of Elvia manufacture from two 16×16 control panels installed in director area. At the same time, on the sub-monitor displays there were appearing notifications for indicating locks of each monitor to concrete video source. Thus, there was created quite dynamic scheme with separate and independent SDI and monitor signals. It brought more possibilities and free play to both video director and technical personnel. Besides, hand commutators were provided for reserve video and audio signals. There was also installed Whiplash slow motion system of Leitch manufacture. In addition to mixer, audio area included practically all sources of sound signals: CD- and MD-players, tape recorder deck, disc recorder, DAT-tape recorder, as well as audio signal processing equipment (compressors, limiters, equalizers, effect-processors, etc.). Engineering section was equipped with video tape recorders, signal commutators, hand video commutators, camera channels, video cameras control blocks, synchronizing generators, video signal control devices, etc. Besides, all machines were equipped with air-conditioning system available of heating, three-circuit body heating systems (including floor heating system), motorized cable reels outer commutation panels. Service communication was provided by Telex equipment; Gigaset devices were used for telephone hybrids. All similar MTSs employed on their roof a platform paled with fold railings, which connected special ladders hidden in special gutter at run-in position. Practically all like stations employed two side doors with stepladders, rain shields and in air light indication. Two stations were provided with microwave equipment for transmitting TV signal onto TV center. Parabolic antenna was placed in back section at run-in position and on the roof of MTS at active mode. These MTSs are still operating at Czech television (mostly state channels) without any complaints from their users.

Mobile complex for signal delivery

Eight-camera mobile station is the latest and most interesting development of the company. It was designed in 2001 for TV Nova, the greatest private TV channel in Czechia. By the way, Mr. Zhelezny, a general manager of TV Nova, has Russian roots and he often says that that is why he wants to learn Russian. In this MTS Elvia company used all latest achievements in video technologies, as well as in body design. MTS employed Mercedes Atego 2524 chassis of 25-tone carrying capacity. This is a maximum weight that is legal on the Czech roads. Total length makes 12 m, height — 3,7 m, width — 2,55 m, correspondingly. MTS’s body is capable of extending its side part, which had to be designed so that, with the body being only 2,5m width for safe traffic, the station should provide enough space for plenty of equipment and comfort conditions for its operating staff. By that moment world practice had already knew analog variants, but not on the territory of Czechia. When technical documentation was developed, the company applied to an English company for realization of such project. It is worth mentioning that designing of this body turned out to be pretty expensive. Its construction took in total six months, and it took almost one year to realize the whole project. Here, much time was spent for manufacturing body’s equipment and chassis at Mercedes factory. Elvia spent a bit more than two months for installation, testing, and finishing of all equipment. Main purpose of the extending part is to enlarge working area inside the body. First, plenty of equipment in closed space may cause hard thermal conditions, and the air-conditioning system may not work correctly. Second, much equipment requires larger number of operating personnel. It will reduce living area and number of air cubic meter for each person. In this case, extending side area is the only right decision, although it is sometimes beyond one’s means. Here equipment is placed across the body in contrast to MTS of Thomson Broadcast manufacture where all equipment is placed lengthwise the walls. In order to enlarge working areas in MTS Elvia designers applied special rotary doors, with the help of which the extending part might become single corridor with two opposite exits or it might be divided across thus enlarging area of each section and providing separate exits for video director, sound producer and engineering sections. All this was necessary for providing most comfortable conditions for MTS’s personnel. The idea is very simple: there should be people who love their work and there must be nothing that disturbs them for final product quality makes the stake, no matter if it is football reporting, live concert or play shooting. By now the company has worked through well video technology, therefore this station does not have any principle differences from earlier MTSs. It employs BVP-950P video cameras with CCU-550P camera channels and RCP-720 control blocks; Digital Betacam DVW-500P video tape recorders, MAV-555 disc recorders, DVS-7200 video mixer, DME-3000 effects block. Video director section contains 25 monitors, sound producer section — 4, and engineering section — 24 monitors, correspondingly. The station is equipped with 32-channel Studer audio mixer, all sound signal sources including eight-channel Akai, and all necessary equipment for sound processing. MTS employs synchronizing generator of Tektronix manufacture with doubling and automatic switching. Leitch digital 32×32 and 32×16 × 2 matrixes are used for video and sound commutation correspondingly. Matrix PAL 40×32 commutator of Elvia manufacture was also installed. Practically all transformers of video and sound signals, distribution amplifiers, adapters, etc. are of Elvia manufacture, which allowed reducing the cost of the station on the whole.

Elvia company