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France 3, the regions-based national broadcaster, has built two new identical HD OB trucks to cover football matches, tennis tournaments, classical concerts and theatre production. The first of the two trucks, collectively known as “The Benjamins”, is already on the road, working out of France 3's Marseille broadcast centre, with the second, to be based in Rennes, due to go into operation by the end of the year.

The medium-sized vehicles are 12-metres long, with four metre expanding sides, each equipped with 12 cameras and a 52-fader Studer Vista 8 digital audio console. The sound rooms of the trucks have over a tonne of acoustic isolation material and are designed for 5.1 mixing.

The Vista 8 desks feature SCore Live digital signal processing, SDI inputs and Dolby E encoders for preparing 5.1 signals for transmission as two-channel feeds. These are supported by two Studer Stageboxes, which are equipped with 32 microphone inputs and are usually positioned some distance from the truck. "We cover a lot of football matches where the Stagebox has to be carried long distances," said sound engineer Christian Mouttet, "and we like the size and weight of the unit and its efficient cooling systems."

France 3, which is part of the France Tèlèvisions group, has over the years re-equipped its OB fleet with digital audio consoles and is now standardising on Vistas, with existing trucks featuring Vista 6s. The broadcaster's operations managers want sound engineers to be able to work in all the trucks, so being familiar with a single desk format is seen as an advantage. At the moment four out of the six France 3 trucks house Vista series consoles.

Most France 3 transmissions are still in standard definition but sport and concerts are being recorded in HD, both for archive purposes and future DVD sales.