King County Television Streamlines With Pro-Bel Technology

Pro-Bel is continuing to provide up-to-the-minute solutions for both large and small broadcast operations across the US with the news that King County Television, situated in Seattle, Washington, has purchased and installed the company’s routing and router control technology.

King County Television is a Government Access Channel—or PEG—that covers the whole of the county including Seattle. The channel is operated by King County and, as with all PEG operations, receives free carriage on the local cable system. The channel’s remit is to provide inhabitants of the area with information about county services and municipal activities. This is mainly achieved through coverage of Council meetings involving its 11 committees and informational short segments.

The channel is based in King County Courthouse in Seattle where there is a studio and three edit suites—running Avid—as well as master control and control room operations. The channel has installed a Sirius router equipped 64 x 64 NTSC and 64 x 64 SD. It has also installed a Freeway 128 for audio, equipped 64 x 64 stereo analog.

James Burns, Station Manager, explains the need for the upgrade, “The station was built in two phases. When the first part was constructed they didn’t look ahead to future expansion and installed a 32 x 32 router, which obviously filled up. Later on they built a second part to the station and put in another 32 x 32 router so the two halves of the station never communicated with one another; you couldn’t route from one side of the station to the other. Now we have an integrated routing infrastructure with real control our workflow has been significantly improved.”

Burns is happy with both the technology and service and highlights the fact that a key part in his purchasing decision was based on the fact that he was confident of good support from the company.

Neil Maycock, President Pro-Bel Americas, adds, “We work with broadcasters across the size spectrum with the flexibility of our product range allowing us to do that. It is always pleasing to see new efficiencies introduced via our solutions and to provide enhanced workflows.”