Continuing a longstanding collaboration, Riedel Communications and Nordic media technology company Media Tailor have joined forces to deliver a broadcast, AV, and communications infrastructure aboard Royal Caribbean International’s newest vessel, Star of the Seas.
At 248,663 gross tonnage, Star of the Seas shares the title of the world’s largest cruise ship with her sister ship, Icon of the Seas.
Designed to deliver large-scale entertainment experiences at sea, the vessel features over 30 theatres, live performance spaces, and multimedia venues, as well as ice and water-based entertainment arenas. The media infrastructure spanning all these entertainment venues and a centralised broadcast centre is built on a fully decentralised Riedel MediorNet network, controlled through Riedel‘s hi human interface platform and complemented by a Riedel Artist, Bolero, and PunQtum intercom ecosystem.
The broadcast centre houses two production galleries and a main rack room for signal routing, recording, playback, post-production, and graphics. Over 20 MediorNet MicroN UHD, MicroN, and Compact nodes deliver distributed routing, signal processing, and multiviewing capabilities across the ship, reducing cabling, saving space, and ensuring reliability at sea.
As the central control platform for all AV, broadcast, and entertainment systems, Riedel’s hi human interface control system provides intuitive control and seamless system management. Deployed with three servers and four dedicated hardware panels, hi extends its reach throughout the ship via software panels accessible from PCs and iPads in entertainment venues and control rooms. In addition to system management, hi also unifies the ship’s MediorNet and Dante networks by routing all Dante audio, automatically converting embedded SDI audio, and grouping related video and audio signals into unified port containers.
This gives operators greater flexibility to manage routing and monitoring across venues, whether they’re supporting live entertainment, video playback, or shipwide communications. At the same time, hi manages GPIO-based automation, linking directly with the ship’s PA/GA system to trigger functions like automated muting or signal rerouting during safety announcements.
Complementing the video and audio infrastructure is Riedel’s Artist intercom system, featuring an Artist-1024 matrix, over 50 SmartPanels, 55 Bolero wireless beltpacks, and PunQtum wired partyline systems. Together, these components form a unified, scalable communications ecosystem for production crews across the ship.