In Broadcast - October 2015 - 85


85

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 10 | October 2015

InForm

RTS - 40 Years Of Customer Partnership
& Technological Innovation
T

oday, communication during
broadcast production is often
seen as a given. But in the early days of
television production, communication
among the crew was often achieved
using telephone company equipment,
which was not intended to conference
more than two stations.
This changed in 1975, when the
founders of RTS took a systems
approach to solve this fundamental
system design problem and developed
the first "Two-Wire Intercom System."
In the following decade, RTS products
became a standard for the television

RTS' ADAM Modular Matrix Intercom

industry, with major television
networks and OB trucks incorporating
RTS products.
After
acquisition
by
Telex
Communications in 1989, an Emmy
Award for Outstanding Achievement
in Engineering Development, and the
exclusive manufacturing rights to
the McCurdy line of matrix intercoms
one year later, Ralph Strader joined
the company in 1993. "The whole
process of bringing in technology and
products, of trying to update them and
create one coherent product line, was
only just beginning," recalls Strader,
who joined RTS as Manager of
Intercom Engineering and is now
Director Product Management for
RTS. "A lot of what we were doing
in the first years was figuring
out what the next generation
of intercom should look like."
The result included numerous
intercom solutions such as the
RTS ADAM full-size modular

matrix, which allowed the company
to significantly increase the capacity
of its large intercom matrices.
Only three years later, the Summer
Olympics in Atlanta set a further
milestone in the company's history.
"Our customer NBC covered the
Games as US broadcaster and wanted
a complete intercom system in their
Atlanta complex. At the same time,
they wanted this intercom system
with 400 users to look as if it were
part of the big intercom system up
in New York so they could do a split
operation," says Strader. "It was an
intense time, but the Olympics went
off without a hitch and trunking
became one of our most defining
features." NBC today, for example,
has one of the largest broadcast
intercom systems in the world, with
about 35 separate intercom systems
all tied together via trunking and
supporting about 12,000 users at any
one moment.

RTS' KP-5032
HD colour display
keypanel

In the new millennium, RTS has
established its IP-based solutions
with RTS Voice over Networking
(RVON) and the subsequent OMNEO
media
networking
architecture.
"The consolidation in the broadcast
industry, accompanied by the trend
towards IP-based solutions and a push
in the industry to have interoperating
equipment
from
different
manufacturers are the reasons for
OMNEO," explains Strader. "As OMNEO
is based on Audinate's Dante, our
customers can tie their intercoms to
third-party products from hundreds of
different manufacturers - combining
RTS's renowned reliability and unique
features with increased flexibility."
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.rtsintercoms.com/us/rts/product/KP-5032/1547 http://www.rtsintercoms.com/us/rts/product/ADAM/1333 http://www.suitcasetv.com http://www.suitcasetv.com
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