New York, NY, February 5, 2009 – Clear-Com® Communication Systems, a Vitec Group brand, is helping ease the production challenges at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center (formerly the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center). The 2,713-seat facility, home to the New York City Ballet and New York City Opera, utilizes Clear-Com’s Eclipse Omega Digital Matrix intercom platform to keep its complex stage and house communication demands running smoothly.
The 2,713-seat theater relies on the Omega’s inherent flexibility to ensure that even the most complicated productions go off without a hitch. This is no small feat, as the communication requirements often change dramatically with every performance shows that can be as varied as a staging of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to a ballet rendition of West Side Story.
“We are a reparatory house and do any number of different major productions,” says Abe Jacob, Audio Consultant for the David H. Koch Theater. “Throughout the year, the building is made available to the Lincoln Center Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival and other off-site attractions, so it’s in operation probably 48 weeks out of the year. Clear-Com gives us very powerful intercom mapping capabilities and that is very helpful, as the needs of each production are incredibly different.”
Intercom mapping, via Clear-Com’s Eclipse Configuration Software (ECS), allows Eclipse users to apply labels online in real time and set up control functions for each individual panel button of the intercom. At the David H. Koch Theater, these capabilities, combined with a series of drop-down menus for accessing different features of the system such as label assignments, networking, DTMF access and key functions, allow staff on different productions to change the intercom mapping to satisfy the requirements of each stage management team and technical crew.
Jacob notes that ECS-powered intercom mapping has vastly streamlined changeover and production time at the theater: “The varied high-end production uses of the building demand an intercom system of the very highest order. The Clear-Com Eclipse Omega System fulfills this demand. We are very happy with its performance.”
Clear-Com’s Eclipse Omega is the most advanced digital matrix intercom platform, offering up to 240 RJ-45 ports over 15 module slots in a 6RU chassis--the highest port density of any available system on the market, making it ideal for large-scale communication productions with thousands of users located in multiple facilities. By connecting multiple Eclipse Omega matrices, up to 3,120 users can be supported on a single networked platform. Each of the 15 slots can house 16-port matrix cards to provide full-duplex connections with panels, external lines, and interfaces to other matrix systems. The system at the David H. Koch Theater has 16 digital stations and 48 ports available throughout the building.
The flexibility of the system afforded by its multiple ports, among other features, has come in especially handy these days, as the theater is undergoing a renovation, installing an audio/video media capture suite for television production for DVD or for live, closed-circuit broadcasts. Jacob says that when the facility made the decision to add the production studio, it wanted to be able to have an intercom system that was adaptable to both live production and broadcast needs.
“This was another reason why we chose the Eclipse Omega. Everyone is very familiar with the system and it works flawlessly. When outside production people come in for stage and video, we are confident we can supply the level of communication necessary.”