The ZDF maintains a large number of studios in Germany, Europe and around the world.

The subject of the project is the relocation of the North Rhine-Westphalia regional studio to the Düsseldorf broadcasting center of Westdeutscher Rundfunk. ZDF will use over 3,000 square meters of office and production space here. As part of the move, the existing production systems in the areas of studio and central technology, editing suites and circuit conference technology will be fundamentally renewed, while at the same time network technology will be modernized. New structured cabling will be installed to connect the different rooms. Since the move will take place during ongoing operations with live productions of the magazine "Volle Kanne - Service täglich" on weekdays, and since the system components to be moved from the previous production studio are to be seamlessly integrated into the newly created system landscape, a further focus is on the elaboration and systematic implementation of the migration concept. In order to be able to use both locations productively during the gradual relocation, they will be connected via a temporarily rented "dark fiber" line.

The video system infrastructure consists of an ingest and playout video server solution, a 3M/E vision mixer (60IN/32OUT), a video router (288x288) with an integrated multiviewer as well as an external multiviewer and seven studio cameras, two ceiling cameras and a camera for circuit conferences. The audio concept provides for a modular audio router with a maximum expansion level of 8,192 I/Os and consists of a mainframe and four distributed I/O audio units as well as an audio console with 48 faders. Delay-free switching of the workstations is realized via KVM extenders. The admin workstations are equipped with a KVM matrix switch for administration of the server systems. In addition, the proven KSC CORE broadcast control system and the KSC SinAlarm broadcast monitoring system from BFE are used in the new production solution of the ZDF regional studio. The production control room equipment is completed by technical broadcast furniture and monitor walls from BFE's production.

"We are delighted to be able to support ZDF in this important project," says Markus Greiter, Managing Director of BFE Studio und Medien Systeme GmbH.