WOUB-TV Receives $255,000 DTV Grant

ATHENS, OHIO: PBS member station WOUB-TV received a $255,283 federal grant for its high-definition upgrade. The matching-fund grant will be used by the WOUB Center for Public Media at Ohio University for digital television gear for producing local high-definition content for the primary HD channels of public television stations WOUB in Athens and WOUC-TV in Cambridge. WOUB obtained the other half of the money for the project from the state of Ohio’s eTech program. The federal funding came through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration Public Telecommunications Facilities Program.

WOUB said the project equipment is classified into three systems necessary for local HD content to be broadcast: 1) acquisition; 2) editing, transcoding, conversion and storage; and 3) interface and monitoring. I.e., WOUB will be in the market for field cameras, support gear and monitors; computers, software and monitors for editing; media recording units, and high-bandwidth storage units; interface and monitoring equipment for the entire workflow chain, from acquisition to play-out.

WOUB said it has invested more than $10 million in equipment and infrastructure in the digital transition. WOUB and sister station WOUC made the transition on June 12.

More on federal DTV grants:
September 22, 2009: “Iowa Public Broadcasting gets $47,000 Federal Grant”
The funds will be used to buy “help purchase and install digital closed captioning equipment for KDIN-DT in Des Moines for local broadcasts and programs distributed over the statewide network.”