Category
New studio technology
— HD
Submitted by Front Porch Digital Design Team KYW-TV: Rich Paleski, dir. of op. and eng.; Marc Musgrove, chief eng.; Brad Risch, op. mgr.; Michael Colleran, general mgr.; Robin Magyar, station mgr. ; Susan Schiller, VP/news dir.
Ascent Media: Steve Vitale, proj. mgr.; Dave Liptak, design eng.
Staubach: Bob Telepak, construction crew
Hillier Architecture Technology at work Barco monitors
Evertz MVP monitor display
Front Porch Digital DIVArchive
Harris X75 synchronizers
Omneon Spectrum media servers
Panasonic AK-HC 930 studio cameras
Sony XDCAMs
Spectra Logic LT03 library
Thomson Grass Valley Aurora edit suite
Utah Scientific
HD/SD-2020 master control processors
KYW-TV enjoys peace and quiet at its new tapeless, file-based HD facility
On April 2, 2007, Philadelphia’s KYW-TV (CBS 3) broadcast its 11 o’clock news from the station’s new 120,000sq-ft facility. It was one of the nation’s first all-HD TV stations built from the ground up, and was designed and constructed in less than 10 months.
The facility is also home to WPSG-TV, a CW station. KYW produces five-and-a-half hours of news per day in addition to sports specials and charity fund-raisers. When the station’s lease was up, the engineering team saw an opportunity to build an efficient, scalable facility that would also be a pleasant place to work. The team knew this would require a different model for storage and workflow than the SD model, which would soon be overwhelmed by the density of information HD carries.
KYW has been successful in meeting its goals. The newsroom is quieter, and people are less inclined to run. A reliable, tapeless, file-based workflow, along with thoughtful workstation placement, means staff members no longer suffer last-minute panics in an effort to find misplaced videotape. They also no longer sprint down hallways burdened with arm loads of tape cassettes when they’re trying to make a deadline.
Key to the success is the digital workflow anchored by Front Porch Digital’s DIVArchive content storage management system, which works with Thomson Grass Valley’s Aurora editing suite and a Spectra Logic LTO3 library, to enable fast, easy desktop identification and retrieval of digitally stored and archived clips. The station’s digital archive also takes up a lot less space than a traditional archive. About two years of archived content can be stored in the equivalent of two racks. KYW still maintains a legacy archive and library room, ingesting content into the digital system as needed. Master control is based on Utah Scientific HD/SD-2020 master control processors, with a Barco monitor wall driven by Evertz MVP monitor displays.
KYW is all HD-SDI in that all signals travel as SMPTE 292M with embedded audio. SD signals are upconverted via Harris X75 synchronizers and later downconverted as necessary for SD transmission. The facility uses Omneon Spectrum servers for program and commercial playout. Acquisition is performed via Sony XDCAMs in the field and Panasonic AK-HC 930 studio cameras.
The stations occupy 100,000sq-ft on a single floor, so the 100m limit for transmitting an HD-SDI signal through coax cable presented a challenge. This was met by locating the central rack room in the center of the facility, minimizing the distance signals travel to the routing switcher. Technical areas were chosen as logical locations for signal reclocking.
