GAINESVILLE, Fla.—WUFT-TV, a PBS member station operated by the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, is both a vital public broadcaster and a training ground for future media professionals. We provide trusted news, educational content, PBS programming and critically important public-safety information from WUFT’s Florida Public Radio Emergency Network (FPREN), which provides hurricane and other significant safety information to the state. WUFT-TV’s service area extends from the Florida-Georgia state line to The Villages and coast to coast in North Florida.
The initial need we set out to address with Actus Digital, a LiveU company, was compliance. WUFT had relied on a memory card-based workflow for air check recording that left the station and university vulnerable, as we could not prove compliance during FCC inspections.
Proof of Compliance
When evaluating technology options, the Actus platform stood out for its comprehensive feature set—particularly its Compliance and Quality Assurance tools. The interactive multiviewer further solidified Actus as the clear choice. As an existing LiveU user station, we’re also excited about the potential for deeper integration in the future.
The Actus QA Compliance Logger has become the backbone of our compliance strategy. It reliably captures everything required to demonstrate FCC compliance, including recordings, closed captioning, CALM Act loudness monitoring and Emergency Alert System messages.
As our chief engineer, Larry Bornacelli, explained: “One of the worst things that can happen to a media property is getting fined by the FCC. Actus protects us by proving we are compliant for both TV and radio.”
Beyond compliance, Actus vastly improves our quality with effective QC monitoring. The Actus multiviewer, accessible anywhere, displays a real-time panorama of our over-the-air broadcast, HDMI set-top box returns and our radio station. It immediately identifies frozen video, missing captions, audio dropouts and other issues with visual/audible alerts on the multiviewer, while also routing notifications through Active Directory via email and SMS.
This integration means our engineers know instantly when there’s a problem and can quickly pinpoint the source of an issue, which dramatically shortens troubleshooting time. Additionally, transport stream analysis gives packet-level visibility into our broadcast, letting us assess latency, jitter and encoding errors.
The Actus system was installed in our technical center alongside our existing encoders and decoders, with Actus technical staff logging in remotely for the configuration. We were so eager that we started using it even before official training, and it quickly replaced several piecemeal systems. Integration with Active Directory simplified user management, and within days, our staff was actively using the system.
Ethan Magoc, interim director of the Innovation News Center at the College of Journalism and Communications, described the overall impact. “Actus is a professional, reliable, industry-standard system that allows our engineers to maintain the quality of our broadcast…while also enabling our students to train on the same state-of-the-art systems they will find in the market after graduation,” he said.
EAS Compliance
In addition, our Actus system plays a vital role in public safety, delivering undeniable proof that WUFT is meeting its FCC EAS obligations. Actus provides a clear timeline of events, supports post-event investigations and verifies performance with reports according to FPREN. This also applies to our BEACON 24-hour, AI-based alerting system, which allows us to deliver timely and accurate messages during hurricanes and other emergencies.
For WUFT, Actus has become an indispensable tool on many levels. It strengthens quality control, assures us of compliance and streamlines engineering operations across the broadcast chain.
Before Actus, we relied on multiple disparate systems. Now, one unified platform gives us a single point of access and confidence in our compliance and quality, across all media properties. With Actus, WUFT has the tools to meet our challenges head-on, confident we are maintaining standards, complying with regulations and continuing to lead our community as a trusted broadcaster and world-class teaching facility.
More information is available at http://actusdigital.com.
