Cobalt Digital Helps Make the Most of Monitoring Inside New High Rock Mobile Truck December 20, 2017
Cobalt Digital Helps Make the Most of Monitoring Inside New High Rock Mobile Truck
by Barry H. Bennett, Owner and Chief Engineer, Bennett Systems Inc.
My company, Bennett Systems, specializes in large-scale mobile systems integration. Our staff has 40 years of combined experience in technology and integration. We've designed and built more large-scale mobile units than most other integrators combined. In fact, Bennett Systems has pioneered many of the systems in many of the largest trucks on the road today.
One of those trucks is High Rock 1, the first mobile production truck for High Rock Mobile Television, the new mobile-production arm of Carr-Hughes Productions. As a longtime packager and producer of some of the world's biggest sports events, Carr-Hughes decided it was time to channel its expertise and resources into its own mobile unit.
High Rock 1 is essentially a full-fledged 53-foot expando A unit that fits into a smaller, 40-foot dual-expando box. Built initially to cover horseracing, High Rock 1 will eventually cover football, baseball, and other sports and entertainment events. In other words, it's capable of handling the same events as its larger cousins, but with a smaller footprint.
High Rock 1 rolled out in late summer equipped with all the professional gear you'd expect to find in any large, high-end outside broadcast truck - including a Grass Valley switcher, a Utah Scientific router, a Calrec Artemis Light audio console, Sony cameras, and EVS replay and digital disks. Signal processing and monitoring comes courtesy of a full slate of Cobalt Digital distribution amplifiers, converters, frame sync/color correctors, and more. The engineer in charge can set up, maintain, and monitor nearly all equipment from a single network computer.
The centerpiece of the Cobalt system is a collection of 54 9970-QS multi-image display processors that create a massive virtual monitor wall inside the truck. Each processor takes in five professional video feeds and outputs a single image to a monitor on the monitor wall. Thanks to this capability, the virtual monitor wall can be reconfigured to display any number of pictures of any size for any given show. The information displayed for each feed typically includes audio meters, video formats, tally/UMD information, and the display name of each feed from the system router. The very-low-latency Cobalt image processors provide the highest quality video so that operators can make decisions on every aspect of the production in real time.
I recommended Cobalt products for High Rock 1 because I've had very good success with them over many years and many builds. Cobalt's designs have always been innovative, easy to use, and virtually problem-free. Also, I really like that all the Cobalt gear -multiviewers, display cards, distribution amplifiers, frame syncs, etc. - fits into the same card frame and can be monitored and controlled through a single software package. Being able to roll everything into card cages and software helps conserve real estate, which was especially important with High Rock 1 because we had to pack 53 feet of functionality into a 40-foot truck.
In addition, because Cobalt's system is card-based, it's easy to start small and build up to the size you need - flexibility that's important when designing space-constrained production trucks. In High Rock's case, that flexibility allows engineers to scale the monitor wall to make the most efficient use of the multiviewers without tying up space that could be better used elsewhere.
We have been extremely happy with our Cobalt products. They have allowed our High Rock Mobile Television engineering teams to be very flexible in our setups for monitoring on our various productions and for our clients, said Jim Carr, president of High Rock Mobile Television. In addition, the gear has been easy for our staff to set up and understand and gives us the power to handle various levels of production. Cobalt's customer service has been outstanding as well.
Barry H. Bennett is the owner and chief engineer of Bennett Systems Inc. He founded the Sunbury, Ohio-based mobile-systems integration company more than 30 years ago. He can be reached at tvmobile.bb@gmail.com.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
Cobalt Digital Helps Make the Most of Monitoring Inside New High Rock Mobile Truck December 20, 2017
