Fixed · mobile · REMINashville, TN28 inbound feedsDraft — not published

Broadcast control rooms

The room where a live show is actually made. What a production control room is, how fixed, mobile and REMI rooms differ, and what is inside the two purpose-built REMI rooms in Nashville.

Live Media GroupUpdated 2026-07-31Nashville, TN · Columbus, OH

What is a broadcast control room?

A broadcast control room, also called a production control room or PCR, is the room where a live show is actually made: the director calls the show, the technical director cuts the switcher, the audio engineer mixes, replay operators build packages and graphics operators run the CG. Every camera feed goes into it and the finished program comes out of it.

Everything else about control rooms is a variation on that one function. The switcher may be a Ross Acuity or something else. The room may be in a building, in a trailer, or producing an event four states away. What does not change is that one room, and the people in it, turn a set of camera feeds into a program.

What is a REMI control room?

A REMI control room is a fixed production control room that receives camera, audio and data feeds from a distant venue over IP, and cuts the live show from there instead of from a truck parked outside the event.

The crew that would normally travel — director, technical director, A1, replay operators, graphics — sits in one room and works the show remotely. At the venue you leave cameras, audio capture, comms and the transport path. Everything downstream of the encoder happens at the control room.

Live Media Group operates two of these rooms at TNDV in Nashville, Tennessee. They were built for remote integration from the ground up, not converted from a studio gallery. See the Nashville control room facility page for booking and contact details.

Definitions

Fixed, mobile and remote control rooms

There are three kinds of production control room, and the difference between them is only where the room physically sits relative to the event.

Fixed control roomAlso: PCR, gallery, hard roomA permanent production control room inside a building. Switcher, audio console, replay, graphics and routing are installed and stay installed. Traditionally paired with a studio in the same facility.
Mobile control roomAlso: OB truck, production truck, mobile unitA remote production truck is a mobile control room. The same positions, the same signal chain and the same discipline as a fixed room, built into a trailer and driven to the venue. Live Media Group operates 30+ of them.
REMI control roomAlso: remote integration, at-home productionA fixed control room that produces events happening somewhere else. Feeds arrive over IP from the venue; the show is cut, mixed, replayed and graphics-treated in the room, then handed to the network or platform from there.

The distinction that matters commercially is not fixed versus mobile. It is how many crew have to get on a plane. A mobile control room brings the room to the event. A REMI control room brings the event to the room.

REMI control room vs. production truck vs. fixed studio

Use a REMI control room when you are producing many events across many venues on a repeating schedule. Use a production truck when the event is large, one-off, or the venue cannot deliver reliable connectivity.

Comparison — three production models
     
REMI control room Production truck Fixed studio gallery  
  Where the crew works Central facility On site, at the venue Attached studio  
  On-site footprint Cameras, audio, comms, transport Full crew and full truck Not applicable  
  Travel cost Low — a small venue team High — crew, per diem, lodging None  
  Events per day, per room Multiple, across venues One Multiple, same building  
  Depends on venue connectivity Yes — this is the constraint No No  
  Best for Season-long schedules, conference and league play, high event volume Tentpole events, complex shows, difficult venues Studio programming, news, in-house shows  
  Scales by Adding rooms and transport paths Adding trucks and crew Adding studio time
   

Most schedules end up hybrid. A conference will put a truck on the marquee game and run the rest of the week’s inventory through a control room. That is not a compromise; it is the correct answer for a schedule with uneven production value.

Facility

The Nashville control rooms

Live Media Group operates two REMI production control rooms at TNDV in Nashville: PCR 1, the primary room, with isolated replay and audio suites adjacent; and PCR 2, a second room configured to take overflow and simultaneous shows.

PCR 1 is built around a Ross Ultrix Acuity production switcher with Ross XPression graphics and a Ross Ultrix router doing the routing and processing. Replay and audio sit in their own rooms off the main gallery, which keeps the A1 and the EVS operators out of the director’s talkback and is the main practical reason a purpose-built REMI room beats a repurposed studio gallery.

Contribution comes in over IP. The room is provisioned for 20 inbound feeds on Haivision Makito encoders and 8 more on LiveU bonded cellular, on redundant dedicated ISP circuits.

PCR 1 — NashvilleRef: TNDV PCR-1 spec snapshot, 2024

Production switcher

Ross Ultrix Acuity — 2 Acuity M/Es, 6 keyers per M/E, 14 DVEs per M/E, 4 video/key media stores per M/E

Control panel

Ross TouchDrive TD2S

Routing

192×192 Ross Ultrix 3G/HD router with 3072×3072 audio embed / de-embed

Audio

Calrec Brio 36 Medley — 36 faders, 96 DSP inputs, 24×16 analogue, 16×16 AES, 64×64 MADI, 64×64 Dante. Isolated audio room.

Replay

(3) EVS XT2+ 6-channel, (1) EVS XT2+ 4-channel Spotbox, (1) EVS XFile 3. Isolated replay room.

Graphics

Ross XPression, dual channel

Record

AJA Ki Pro Ultra Plus, Blackmagic H.264 recorder

Intercom

RTS ODIN digital intercom frame

Monitoring

(10) configurable integrated multiviewer outputs

Contribution in

(20) inbound feeds via Haivision Makito; (8) inbound feeds via LiveU

Connectivity

Redundant dedicated ISP; (8) VoIP lines

What has to be at the venue for a REMI show?

Cameras and camera control, audio capture, comms back to the control room, and a contribution path with enough bandwidth and enough redundancy to carry every feed for the length of the show.

The venue package is smaller than a full truck, but it is not small. Somebody still has to rig, cable, shade and operate cameras. Somebody still has to capture and send clean audio. And the transport path is the part that fails, so it gets planned first: primary circuit, diverse backup, and a bonded cellular fallback under it.

For venue-side deployment Live Media Group uses fly packs where a truck is not warranted, and REMI-configured mobile units — principally MU-28 and MU-27 — where the venue package needs to be substantial. Those units carry camera control, routing, monitoring and intercom without carrying a switcher, because the switcher is in Nashville.

Who books a REMI control room?

Organisations with more events than travel budget: conference and league networks, women’s sports properties, streaming platforms with a full season to cover, and entertainment producers running a run of shows out of one venue.

The Nashville rooms went into service on a series of women’s softball games for Athletes Unlimited, which distributes to platforms including ESPN. That is the shape of the workload a REMI room is built for — a repeating schedule at a consistent production standard, where sending a truck and a full crew to every date would not survive the budget.

Entertainment and music work runs through the same rooms. TNDV’s history is in live music, awards and specials, and a control room that can cut a softball doubleheader on Tuesday can cut a concert broadcast on Friday. See cinematic REMI for how that work is approached differently.

Questions

Control room FAQ

What is a production control room?

A production control room, or PCR, is the room where a live show is actually made: the director calls the show, the technical director cuts the switcher, the audio engineer mixes, replay operators build packages and graphics operators run the CG. It is the room every camera feed goes to and the finished program comes out of.

Is a production truck the same thing as a control room?

Yes. A remote production truck is a mobile control room. It holds the same positions and the same signal chain as a fixed room, built into a trailer so it can be driven to the venue. The difference is location, not function.

What makes a control room a REMI control room?

A REMI control room produces events that are happening somewhere else. Camera and audio feeds are encoded at the venue and sent over IP to the room, and the show is cut, mixed and finished there. A conventional fixed control room produces the studio it is attached to.

Where is Live Media Group’s REMI control room?

Nashville, Tennessee, at TNDV. There are two rooms — PCR 1, the primary room with isolated replay and audio suites, and PCR 2 for overflow and simultaneous shows.

How many feeds can the Nashville control room take?

PCR 1 is provisioned for 28 inbound contribution feeds: 20 on Haivision Makito encoders and 8 on LiveU bonded cellular, over redundant dedicated ISP circuits.

Can one control room produce two events at once?

One room produces one show at a time. Two rooms produce two. The volume advantage of REMI comes from turning a room around between events on the same day rather than moving a truck and crew between cities.

Does REMI production replace mobile production trucks?

No. It changes what the truck is for. Cameras, audio and transport still have to be at the venue, and large or complex events are still better served by a full on-site truck. Live Media Group runs 30+ mobile units alongside the Nashville rooms precisely so the model can be chosen per event rather than imposed on the schedule.

What happens if the connection to the venue drops?

That is what the redundancy planning is for: a primary circuit, a diverse backup path, and bonded cellular under both. Transport design is the first conversation on any REMI show, not the last.