BILLERICA, Mass. — Feb. 17, 2009 — Echolab Inc., a leading provider of professional video switchers and broadcast tools, today announced that Salem Community Television of Salem, N.H., has deployed the company's Overture2™ SD video production switcher to serve the production needs of three community cable television channels and to support video production training for high school students and community volunteers.
"The Overture digital switcher fits perfectly into our current operation, enabling us to continue to use legacy analog equipment while also providing an easy upgrade path to high-definition," said Tom Giarosso, Salem Community Television executive director. "We have high-quality SD cameras, and we can now run their SDI signals directly to the board for better image quality. We also appreciate that the Overture has built-in conversion, which eliminated the need for additional equipment, thus saving us money and streamlining the system as a whole."
Salem Community Television's studio and main production facility are located in Salem High School's multi-use area, where the school's television production class is also taught. The cable broadcaster also has multiple remote cameras including four robotic cameras in the high school gym and three in the auditorium, all of them feeding the Overture switcher and controlled from the main facility. The switcher also receives feeds from cameras located in the town hall across the street and from a webcam on the roof of the high school.
The cable broadcaster was launched with a single channel for the high school in the 1970s, and subsequently added a separate educational channel and later a government channel — all of them sharing the same production facility. As a result, the range of programming encompasses town and school deliberative sessions, an in-house studio show produced by high school students, sports, and musical performances.
"One of our goals in designing the Overture family of switchers was to make them easy to use," said Ankit Patel, senior product manager for Echolab. "Customizable features like RGB mnemonics and user definable macro keys are standard. They make setups simple and enable even inexperienced operators to create programming that looks sophisticated. The Overture switcher makes perfect sense for placement at a wide variety of production facilities including community television stations and schools."
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About Salem Community Television (SCTV)
SCTV is committed to the ideals of building bridges in the community by using public access programming to serve the residents of Salem, N.H. SCTV-17 is a central conduit for local information using a multimedia approach, via the television channel, bulletin boards, web sites, RSS Subscriptions, podcasts, and video on demand.
About Echolab, Inc.
Echolab, Inc. is a leading provider of video production switchers and related tools that offer flexibility and on-air reliability for the production and distribution of digital media in a variety of formats. With products including its flagship Overture1™ and Overture2™ video production systems, Echolab delivers the robust functionality, reliability, and ease-of-use critical to professional-quality productions. Since its founding in 1974, the company has delivered more than 6,000 production solutions to a global client base including major broadcast networks and stations, corporations, educational institutions, houses of worship, sports arenas, entertainment venues, and military facilities. www.echolab.com
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