Chapter List

5.1.1 Evolution of OB Vehicles and Mobile Control Rooms

Bringing outdoor events into the living room of the viewer is becoming more and more common. In order to record these events, be they sport, a concert or an important national event or ceremony, there is more and more reliance on the use of the outside broadcast or OB vehicle. Where these vehicles were once small control rooms on wheels, the move has been to build 'Super Vehicles' which are equipped for multi-camera/multi-recording situations. The design and construction of these vehicles requires a considerable concentration of effort from a group of designers, each a master of his or her own expertise in a particular aspect of the vehicle, which as a team come together to build this mammoth mobile television control room of the road.

The ability to televise any outside event, be it sport or a national event, is found in the original developments of television, when Sir Isaac Schoenberg led a team of EMI engineers in the 1930s.

Detailed plans were compiled, with a number of vehicles to be specifically constructed for this purpose. One vehicle housed the Emitron cameras and their associated control...