Before the pandemic, MediaHub had been looking into replacements for the existing RTS Cronus system with Magna and had identified RTS Odin as a product which allowed a migration of on-air comms from the Cronus to the IP-based Odin. This replacement was earmarked for 2020-21, but needed to be accelerated due to Covid.

For MediaHub’s remote working plan Talkback at home was a key component due to the large volumes of reactive live channels being serviced by the operations team.

With the aid of Magna and RTS, MediaHub looked at the capabilities of the RTS VLink software to enable secure remote comms over internet links. MediaHub operators were then provided with tablets that acted as soft panels which used VOIP technology over VPN links to access the MediaHub talkback system from their at-home pres desks. Due to the responsiveness of the VLink system, clients were not able to discern that staff were in-fact working remotely.

This VLink addition ultimately brought forward the expansion of the Cronus with Odin and VLink, as Dante and Omneo interfaces were now required to interface the VLink remote comms into the main matrix. For all these comms needs and more MediaHub turned to Lucas Bohm at Magna Systems & Engineering.

MediaHub Executive Head of Technology, Simon Scott, explained, “In developing a solution with Lucas and RTS, we worked out a plan to achieve not only a live refresh of the existing platform, but deliver new functionality to meet the needs of business and operations teams during the initial stages of the lockdown. This upgrade was completed in record time by Magna and MediaHub’s IT and engineering teams. Then by leveraging the new connectivity options within Odin, our clients experienced an interruption-free transition. This was a great project that exceeded our expectations to allow our operations team to seamlessly move to remote operations with secure comms that replicated a traditional environment.”

The Odin Digital Intercom is a highly scalable intercom system in a 1RU (Rack Unit) package. As MediaHub’s capacity needs to evolve, a single Odin can grow from 16 ports to a maximum of 128 ports. A maximum of eight units can be interconnected via an optical Inter-Frame Link creating a single matrix with up to 1024 ports. The total number of licensed ports may be allocated freely to any port hardware type supported by the unit.

MediaHub purchased a five frame ODIN system, allowing for their current requirements and room for future expansion. MediaHub’s new Odin is the core of their comms network as it enables remote operations to be deployed quickly and efficiently without an impact to MediaHub clients or operations teams.

Scott added, “MediaHub’s presentation operations rely heavily on live content and having reliable, low-latency comms is essential to meet our high standards of clean switching between content that our clients demand. With that in mind, when we compared the ODIN to other comms systems in the market, the performance of the system, and simplicity of its configuration really stood out.”