Ancienne Belgique is an internationally acclaimed concert venue for contemporary music located in the heart of Europe: Brussels, Belgium. Each year we receive 350.000 visitors and accommodate over 400 events.

We are also equipped with a recording studio, broadcast control room and 10 PTZ cameras, capable of recording concerts in both our main hall and club. We record and stream around 40 events per year.

Maarten Coosemans, Video Producer

In 2022, we started planning a major upgrade of our in-house recording infrastructure. Our goals were to upgrade the quality of our concert recordings, increase flexibility and getting ready to work in a UHD environment supported by a fiber backbone. The biggest challenge was to find the right technology partner to meet the requirements for our situation. Broadcast technology is rapidly taking huge steps and we needed to make a choice is future-proof in this complex context with tons of options, ranging from low-budget products to extremely expensive solutions.

After evaluating different solutions and consulting multiple technology partners, we’ve teamed up with our Belgian supplier Crosspoint to make a blueprint of what the video network topology should look like. It quickly became clear that Barnfind’s BarnColor & BarnMini products are the most cost-effective choice. The combination of ease of use, scalability and reliability made it a no-brainer. Furthermore, multiplexed signals would mean a dramatically more efficient use of physical fibers compared to other solutions.

We have implemented the Barnfind hardware in July 2023. At the time of writing (May 2024), the installation has been running 24/7 for 10 months without any dropouts, failures, or other technical issues. It just works flawlessly. Barnfind’s solutions proved to have been the ideal choice.