Idaho Public Television in Boise, Idaho, has selected two Broadcast Pix Slate 1000 integrated digital production switchers to produce its "Legislative Live" service covering Idaho Senate and House proceedings.
"Legislative Live" provides C-Span style, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Idaho State Legislature, and premiered on Jan. 8, 2007. It is distributed as a public service via several different media platforms including over-the-air broadcast, digital cable, Web, mobile phones, and audio podcasts.
Jeff Tucker, production manager for Idaho Public Television said the compact design of the Slate 1000 was a critical consideration because the production control room is located in a 15- by 9-foot "closet" in the basement of the Idaho State Capitol building. The HD-ready Slate 1000 packs the same functionality found in a room full of broadcast equipment into an integrated unit that only requires one operator.
Both Slate 1000 systems are configured to accept SDI inputs from three Panasonic AW-E860A 2/3-inch 3-CCD SD cameras located in the House and Senate chambers. The cameras can be controlled via the Broadcast Pix camera control system, and their pictures displayed on the Slate 1000's integrated multiview VGA monitors.
"Legislative Live" is broadcast in SDTV on two of the PBS station's DTV subsystems-digital multicast channels. Idaho Public Television's SDTV and HDTV programming is broadcast across the state by five DTV transmitters as well as by CableOne and Time Warner on its digital cable tiers. The live coverage of the proceedings is available online at either 56k or 300k broadband.
