The Newseum, a museum dedicated to the news business located in Washington, D.C., will open on April 11 with numerous interactive exhibits, live news feeds coming in from around the world and a complete HD production system from Thomson.
The new multimillion-dollar facility, designed and implemented by Newington, VA-based systems integrator Communications Engineering (CEI), is located on historic Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and U.S. Capitol building. It will offer visitors a unique multimedia experience that spotlights five centuries of newsgathering and reporting history while employing the latest news production technology used by stations around the world today. The museum features seven levels of galleries and 15 theaters as well as a giant LED screen located in the atrium of the building.
The Newseum also boasts modern HD production facilities that include two production studios, two control rooms, five edit suites and a multiformat HD news production infrastructure. This includes two Thomson Grass Valley Kalypso HD 4 M/E production switchers; eight LDK 6000 WorldCam HD cameras; a 14 x 22 K2 HD media server system and a 9 x 3 K2 SD media server system, together sharing more than 500 hours of K2 storage; four Turbo digital disk recorders; and both a Trinix video router (256 x 256) and an Apex audio router (256 x 256) under the control of an Encore router control system.
ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” will move its production home to the Newseum in the first half of 2008. The Sunday morning news program will be produced in ABC’s HD format of choice, 720p. The same Thomson Grass Valley equipment used to produce “This Week” can also produce shows in the 1080i HD format and is also capable of production in all common HD and SD formats.
The Newseum features two studios, one of which will host “This Week.” The control room for each includes a glass wall where visitors to the Newseum can watch as programs are produced.
For more information, visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.
