KTVU, the Cox Television-owned Fox affiliate in Oakland, CA, one of the first in its market to broadcast HD local newscasts, is using Grass Valley digital production equipment from Thomson to produce more than 38 hours a week of HD news.
The station, which went live with its first HD newscast in October 2006, relies on a Grass Valley Kayak HD 4 M/E production switcher for production of six HD news programs that combined account for 38.5 hours of HD news weekly.
The KTVU migration to HD includes a new set, a native HD graphics package, a new Live StormTracker 2 radar display and a new Live Drive Time Traffic HD mapping computer with real-time traffic sensors.
While KTVU’s studio anchors and in-house segments are captured with native HD cameras, the station will continue to acquire SD in the field and upconvert finished news packages to match those shot in the studio.
In addition to its Kayak system, KTVU has also installed a 16-channel K2 Media Server. Six channels are used for ingest and 10 for commercial playout. The station plans to be on air with its K2 Media Server within a few weeks.
By June, KTVU will migrate all of its HD production activities to a Grass Valley Ignite integrated production system. This will allow one or two operators to run the entire newscast — including cameras, graphics and audio — while freeing up other production staff for creative tasks.
For more information, visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.
