French-speaking Belgian Broadcaster RTBF has recently chosen to associate with EVS on the development of a control room solution designed to increase operational flexibility, creativity and productivity across its TV, radio, and digital platforms.

The Cerebrum broadcast control and monitoring system will be the heart of the system and the solution aims to introduce a common production environment that users can access through an interface in remote.

The solution, which is being developed ahead of RTBF’s relocation to its future Media Square production facility in 2024, is an evolution of the Control Room 42 (or CR42), a prototype born out of the broadcaster’s ambition to reinvent its working methods using new technologies. The Proof of Concept built by RTBF’s users and engineers gained high visibility across the industry for its breakthrough innovation potential and was even honored with an EBU Technology and Innovation Award in 2020.

Thierry Piette, RTBF’s Technology Program Manager in charge of the deployment of the new Media Square facility said: “EVS’ reliable solutions and forward-looking technology roadmap are giving us the right foundations to make our ambitious vision, as outlined in CR42, RTBF’s new reality. As a result of this partnership, our teams can look forward to working in a highly flexible, software-defined environment that removes the constraints of physical, dedicated workspaces and can easily adapt to all our future production needs.”

Besides broadening the scope of operational control, the control room solution will enable the support of new creative formats and optimize the back-end infrastructure without any compromise on the quality of the output. It is characterized by an open architecture that enables the control of any EVS or third-party device needed on a live production through modular interfaces that abstract away the complexities of the underlying infrastructure from the user. The solution is also capable of scaling on-demand, to accommodate additional operators if a live production suddenly grows in complexity or to allow RTBF to quickly adapt its control room functions for back-to-back productions.