Utah Scientific announced New Century Productions, a North American provider of mobile television production facilities, will place a UTAH-400/XL routing switcher at the heart of its upgraded HD broadcast truck, NCP IV, which is now being refurbished in Pittsburgh. Since the 53-foot truck with a 42-foot expansion began life as an HD truck in 2004, it has carried analog cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors — the main purpose of the upgrade is to install a concave, flat-panel, HD monitor wall, which will be cooler, lighter, less bulky, and more energy efficient — to say nothing of being more flexible for NCP clients.
The 528-frame UTAH-400/XL router (configured 204×384) is being implemented chiefly to accommodate the new monitor wall displays throughout the truck. The UTAH-400/XL is powerful but compact with only 20 rack units and needs no special cable or connector arrangements. In NCP IV, the 500 output UTAH-400/XL is not significantly larger than the 96×96 router it is replacing and it fits in the same rack allowing NCP engineers to reuse all the existing cabling. NCP IV carries 12 cameras and covers sports for Fox, ESPN, and NASCAR, among others. After spending 50 days in the shop undergoing the upgrade, it will return to duty January 20 to endure a grueling, nearly seven-day-a-week schedule of NBA basketball, NHL hockey, college basketball, and Supercross racing.
