For the 27th consecutive year, Broadcast Technical Services' founder, CEO and president Bill McKee, will be serving as de facto chief engineer of television facilities for the 2019 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo , held from February 25 through March 17 at NRG Park. This year, to make sure that audio sources are precisely fed to both front-of-house and the television production facility, McKee will rely on the Clear-Com ProGrid Audio Network Solution.
Taking place over the course of three weeks, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the world's largest livestock show and rodeo, and encompasses a wide variety of events, including concerts, a carnival, a barbecue contest, and a variety of special events.
For the 2018 Rodeo, Clear-Com provided a ProGrid system for testing, and Rodeo management was so impressed that they purchased a system for this year's event, said McKee. We use a total of three 16-channel
PG16-AUDIO ProGrid I/O boxes, two transmits (32 Channels) and one receive (16 Channels) in the announce booth and the opposite setup in the South Communication room - where the audio signals are split for front-of-house and the TV mix - all tied together with redundant duplex single-mode fiber.
We run 32 channels 1,500 feet between the announce booth and the south communication room and then 3,000 feet from the south comm to the Rodeo TV studio, explains McKee. While we're mostly using line level, the ProGrid software allows us to enable phantom power for the mics if we need it. And the software is great: we can label all our inputs, monitor inbound audio and since everything is paired together, we can see the secondary receive site. That way we can change the input or output gain on the fly. We can also remote network into the system and take control from the TV studio across the street, so if an input is clipping or overdriving, we can remotely adjust it instead of having to make on-site changes.
This is a complicated show, said McKee. There are lots of events, not just the rodeo, which is just a part of the bigger event. We've got 20-plus cameras for the rodeo, but 32 total cameras for all the events, including the concerts. We needed a solution that could deal with the variety of audio boards being used, as the TV mix board is very different from the concert board or front of house mix. ProGrid gives us the control and monitoring confidence that this event demands.
Although McKee is using ProGrid for analog mic and line level audio signals, the platform can transport, route and convert them to and from MADI, AES/EBU and four-wire intercom - independent of manufacturer or brand - as well as proprietary interfaces such as Yamaha YGDAI cards quickly, cost-effectively and easily over a fiber.
ProGrid offers mission-critical redundancy, robustness and reliability for small to very large infrastructural requirement for installed as well as portable applications, scaling up to 192 units - with an industry-leading low latency of only 41.6 microseconds. Adding BroaMan allows the addition of uncompressed SDI video transmission to any ProGrid system.
We're really glad we got that demo last year, added McKee. The ability to monitor and adjust analog signal gain without converting from digital is really nice, especially with a show that is constantly growing and improving every year. And ProGrid really makes that easier.
Categorised in:
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
Genelec announces V2.1 for Aural ID binaural headphone monitoring application posted: 29/05/2026
Aural ID 2.1 enhances binaural monitoring for stereo and ...
29/05/2026
At just 20 years old, Sean Melia from Summerhill Co. Meath has been revealed as the winner of Super Garden 2026. Sean is the youngest ever contestant and winner...
For the 27th consecutive year, Broadcast Technical Services' founder, CEO and president Bill McKee, will be serving as de facto chief engineer of television facilities for the 2019 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo , held from February 25 through March 17 at NRG Park. This year, to make sure that audio sources are precisely fed to both front-of-house and the television production facility, McKee will rely on the Clear-Com ProGrid Audio Network Solution.
