Park Road Post Production, a premier post production facility based in Wellington, New Zealand, has recently invested in a new MADI solution from DirectOut Technologies to improve workflow in the mix area.
Owned by Academy Award-winning film director Peter Jackson, best known for having directed and produced ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, Park Road was established as a one-stop shop with integrated picture and sound departments all under one roof. The facility forms part of a creative community that includes the Academy Award-winning Weta Digital and Weta Workshop and the soundstages of Stone Street Studios.
Park Road head of sound John Neill explains that the initial reason for the upgrade was to reduce the number of devices within the mix area in order to reduce background fan noise. In doing so, he found that he actually ended up with a much more flexible MADI system for the mix team in the bargain.
Neill worked with Wellington-based AV solution provider Protel and DirectOut Australia/NZ distributor Professional Audio & Television to integrate a number of MA2CHBOX headphone amplifiers for MADI signals, and an ANDIAMO.XT AD/DA/DD converter into the existing environment, at the heart of which is a Euphonix System 5 console.
The MA2CHBOX BNC units are used to provide the Protools editors on the mix stage with a direct feed of their first 64 tracks via headphones. According to Neill, “This meant that the feed existed even when staff were opening other projects on the console. The challenge was to get a split of the MADI feed and send it via a long cable to the mix theatre. This was achieved by isolating the split to the long cable on the console in such a way that it neither affected, nor was affected by the console status.”
Meanwhile, the ANDIAMO.XT ensures high-quality A/D (MADI/AES) and D/D conversion in a compact form factor at an affordable price point.
“The DirectOut products were the only devices to offer all the functionality we required at the standard we demanded,” concludes Neill. “The project is a total success and we’ll definitely extend this system to other areas in the future.”
