Florida PBS station WEDU has installed a 2TB Omneon Spectrum media server for ingest and playout of local and national programming on its three channels. The installation is part of a ground-up rebuild of station master control as part of a renovation of its 30-year-old building.
The Spectrum system installed at WEDU’s Tampa headquarters consists of four SD playout channels, two HD/SD playout channels, four SD record channels, one HD record channel, an SD prep channel and an HD prep channel. The system is fully tapeless with ingest either from the satellite feed or local production recorded to the Omneon server. That content is then prepped either as-is in high-resolution or by using low-resolution proxies under the direction of Sundance automation. Programming is then available for playout or for archiving in a Masstech MassStore system. WEDU is broadcasting PBS network content on one HD channel with analog simulcast on one SD channel, and the Florida Knowledge Network for 12 hours per day on the second SD channel.
The renovation was two years from conception to completion with Tampa-based systems integrator Vernick Technology on-site for 45 days. The new equipment replaces an old analog system.
WEDU has realized a number of specific benefits including saving time when inserting interstitial material like promos, underwriting announcements and station IDs. This used to be accomplished by sneakernet — an editor exporting a clip to tape, then carrying the tape down the hall and ingesting it either into a standalone server or to a betacart. Now, when an editor is through with the spot, he saves it to the Spectrum system using a QuickTime wrapper on an MPEG file and then drags it to a folder on the network; thus, a chore that used to take at least 15 minutes is almost instantaneous.
For more information, visit www.omneon.com.
