KLRU Goes Tapeless With Omneon

Austin, Texas public TV station KLRU is using Omneon's Spectrum media server to transition to a tapeless workflow for its multichannel broadcast operations.

The Omneon system is used to broadcast an exclusive 24/7 channel for local Time Warner cable system, and four channels on the facility's digital spectrum. The spectrum includes a duplication of the primary channel and three prepackaged schedules provided by PBS.

"In the move toward a tapeless environment, we chose the Omneon Spectrum because it already had a proven track record with other PBS broadcast stations and it offered the storage capability and key features that would enable us to improve the quality of our broadcasts significantly," said KLRU Chief Engineer David Kuipers.

The Omneon system offers shared storage and synchronized playout. The deployment is made up of seven input and output ports with 2TB of storage, adding up to about 200 hours of material. The system is used to ingest most of the KLRU's standard records and for tape-delay of HD material.

The station has more than 4,000 hours of media content in its tape library so the transition to a tapeless environment and digital operations is gradual.