WETA equips studio cameras for ‘NewsHour’ with Fujinon lenses

WETA, the public broadcasting station in Washington, D.C., has installed six Fujinon HA27X6.5 ESM premium HD studio lenses mounted to Sony HDC-1000L cameras for production of the PBS signature nightly news program, “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”

To make the HD broadcast of “NewsHour” possible, WETA worked with Newington, VA-based systems integrator Communications Engineering (CEI) to build a new state-of-the-art control room and HD-optimized set.

The construction, designed to enable the HD broadcast of “NewsHour,” is serving other areas of WETA programming as well. The facility housed HD coverage of the Democrat and Republican national political conventions, as well as that of the 2008 presidential election.

The Fujinon lenses represented a fiscally responsible choice for HD lenses, said Chris Lane, WETA VP of technology and engineering. According to Lane, his counterparts at other PBS stations around the country receiving “NewsHour” expressed their satisfaction with the “pristine” images of the lenses deliver.

For more information, visit www.fujinonbroadcast.com.