GRASS VALLEY, CALIF.—Veterans-TV Inc., a newly formed non-profit organization, announced this week that it plans to launch hands-on professional television production training courses for veterans of the U.S. armed forces, law enforcement veterans, and firefighters who have lost their employment due to injury or attrition. VETV is creating a mobile classroom within Denali Gold, a remote production truck donated to the cause by NEP, and will provide courses in cities across the U.S. when integration of donated broadcast equipment is complete.

"We're so grateful for the depth and breadth of generosity we're seeing from companies and individuals across the industry," said VETV President Bob Lefcovich, who has more than 50 years of experience working in broadcast production and postproduction. "Training on the best equipment with some of the industry's best professionals is an incredible opportunity, and I'm proud to be playing a role in bringing this opportunity to those who have served our country."

Led by industry professionals on a volunteer basis, VETV courses are open to all veterans, their spouses, and dependents over 18, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Proposed courses will address roles such as video technician, camera operator, audio technician, technical assistant, editor, technical director, and engineer in charge (EIC) and areas of expertise including Avid Media Composer (NLE), Adobe Premiere Pro (NLE), character generator/art, EVS operator, and information technology (IT). All courses except the EIC course will be 192 hours with eight hours of hands-on tests.

Lefcovich and the VETV advisory board have so far raised more than $2 million in donations of modern, state-of-the-art TV production and postproduction equipment, with NEP and Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, offering extensive support in terms of equipment donations and integration. In fact, all of the equipment being installed in Denali Gold for training purposes has been donated by manufacturers and broadcasters including AJA, Blackmagic, Calrec Audio, Ensemble Design, EVS, Kramer, Renegade Labs, Ross Video, Telestream, and many more. Integration started at the beginning of December.

In its previous career with NEP, Denali Gold was involved in high-profile remote broadcasts including the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, "America's Got Talent," "Entourage," "American Idol," "Shark Tank," "Showtime at the Apollo," Fox network upfronts, presidential inauguration concerts in Washington, D.C., and scores of other broadcasts.

"With all the industry pros involved in getting our mobile classroom ready, we've probably got 180 years of combined experience working on the truck right now," added Lefcovich. "As students are certified within our program, we'll put all that industry expertise and all our connections to work in helping trained veterans find employment. My colleagues and I have enjoyed great careers in TV, and VETV gives us a way of leveraging our experience to give back and to help veterans with their re-entry into society."

Lefcovich was a cameraman for ABC Wide World of Sports in the '70s, edited hundreds of TV shows and commercials in the '80s, trained many hundreds of editors while working as the senior applications specialist for the Grass Valley Group, and served as tech support and trainer for five different Olympics. He also is one of the founders of Editware, a designer and manufacturer of hybrid editing systems.

Further information about VETV and details about donating to the organization are available at www.veterans-tv.org.

CEDAR RIDGE, CALIF.—Renegade Labs will have a pair of audio products at its booth during the 2017 NAB Show that will support both Dante/AES67 networked audio and SDI multi-channel audio.

M3G-XT

One of the products is the D3G, which converts SDI audio to Dante/AES67 networked audio. The D3G can convert eight channels of SD/HD/3G SDI audio to Dante. The platform also includes eight channels of analog output for confidence monitoring, audio delay for video path corrections and onboard sample rate converters to accommodate any Dante network sample rate.

The M3G-XT multi-input/multichannel audio monitoring system will also be on display. The M3G-XT allows for SDI audio monitoring and can monitor additional audio sources like Dante/AES67, analog or digital inputs. The system can be configured to work with all Renegade I/O modules. When combined with a Dante/AES67 networked audio module , M3G-XT can monitor both networked audio and incoming SDI signals while simultaneously sourcing the SDI audio on the Dante network. With the 3G/HD/SD dual SDI module users can monitor up to three SDI sources in a single platform. Additional features include surround sound downmix, panel-snapshot memory registers, analog stereo input and headphone output, as well as a companion GUI application that is available for Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.

Renegade will also show its M3G SDI audio monitoring system and its line of digital audio mixers.

Renegade will demonstrate the products at its booth, C3244, during the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas.