Transportation Security Administration

By TVTechnology
published

Transportation Security Administration

The main goals of the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) television production facility, located in Arlington, VA, were to allow the agency to produce HD video and expand its production capacity. This allowed it to produce and distribute TSA content for public or private distribution in today’s SD and HD standard. Professional Products Inc. (PPI), located in Gaithersburg, MD, did the design and build for this production facility.

The new production facility includes one television production studio, one video control room, a technical equipment core and a new video server storage system that supports post production on two network-attached nonlinear editors. The production system was designed for HD 16:9 video productions using the 1080i or 720pformat as detailed in the SMPTE 292M specification and allows for downconversion of the HD for SD duplication, distribution and streaming.

The new studio includes two HD cameras and the ability to connect a third camera into the system. Signals from the two cameras, microphones and an HD character generator are fed into a digital production switcher and digital audio mixer. Audio and video signals from three meeting rooms are also available via the router. The video output of the production switcher and program output of the audio mixer are combined before being fed into the HD video routing switcher. Programming is recorded on an HD video server, a disc recorder or a DVCAM recorder, or streamed over Ethernet.

After the studio production is complete, the post-production process begins. Studio or other ingested media are instantly available and editable on two Final Cut Pro (FCP) nonlinear editing systems. A rough edit is performed. Titles, graphics, audio processing and animations are added in post, if required. The final edit is performed, reviewed and published to the video server system.

The final product can be duplicated onto XDCAM disc, DVCAM, DVD or VHS, transmitted to an external destination, or encoded as a desktop media file for distribution or streaming purposes.

The post-production process remains on the server throughout the process as a digital file. At any stage during the process, the program can be viewed through the two FCP workstations. These workstations have hardware that allows the program to be viewed on an HD video monitor rather than on the workstation’s desktop monitor.

  • New studio technology — nonbroadcast
    Submitted by Professional Products Inc.Design teamPPI: Rick Winde, exec. mgr., Designed Systems Group; Chuck Heffner, sr. app. eng.; Matt Franklin, sys. design eng.
    TSA: Bruce Meermans, asst. dir., Emerging Technologies; Sterling Payne, acting deputy asst. administratorTechnology at workADC
    AJA
    Analog Way
    Apple: Final Cut Pro system
    Audio-Technica
    Aurora
    Autoscript
    Avocent
    Clear-Com: Microphones
    Evertz
    Extron
    Harris: NEXIO server platform
    Hitachi
    Ikegami
    JVC
    Mackie
    Magenta Middle Atlantic
    MultiDyne
    Omnimount
    Ross Video
    Samsung
    Sennheiser
    Sharp
    Sony
    TANDBERG
    Tannoy
    Telos
    TVLogic
    Vinten
    Wohler
    Yamaha

© 2009 Penton Media, Inc.

TVTechnology