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TV facilities go green

Sep 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Angela Snell

Saving Mother Earth can be good for the pocketbook.

NBC Universal’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” set is eco-friendly. It was constructed with FSC plywood, bamboo floors and a recycled desk.

Photo courtesy NBC/Dana Edelson.

A recent report developed by the BPM Forum (an organization that helps advance the understanding of business performance management techniques, technologies and processes in global enterprises), in conjunction with server and storage manufacturer Rackable Systems and Intel, said that 99 percent of people think it's important for the media and entertainment industry to reduce its carbon footprint.

Going green is good for the environment, but it's also a way for broadcasters to save money in the long term. And, in this economy, pinching every penny can help you keep your job. This article will explore ways that broadcasters can go green, looking at it from three perspectives: a broadcaster, manufacturer and systems integrator.

NBCU is eco-friendly

Over the past few years, NBCU has taken a three-step initiative to improve energy efficiency while at the same time reducing costs and streamlining operations. One part of the three-step process focused on consolidating heavy metal operations to increase the efficiency of shared resources.

According to Kendall Bryant, manager of Green is Universal at NBCU, “This enables a focus on improving and maintaining these core resources and allows NBCU to control the growth of the biggest power consumers — servers, equipment rooms, storage, routers, etc.”

The second step focuses on minimizing the amount of gear “just left on” in control rooms and production facilities.

Bryant says, “For too long, the practice of leaving equipment on 24×7×365 was overlooked as newer equipment was installed. Now, NBCU is auditing what machines can be shut off without disrupting routine operations. A big opportunity is through the move from analog to digital and SD to HD.”

The network has been focused on shutting down old systems and areas that are no longer in use from the SD to HD transition. Bryant says, for years, the industry was running on dual analog and digital systems but now with the official transition, broadcasters can move to a single system. This not only saves on space, but it also saves on energy to run and cool the systems.

The third step in NBCU's green initiative is enabling staff and crew to utilize desktop tools as the technologies improve. This will focus the need for large facilities that have intensive energy and cooling requirements on only specialized functions.

Recently, the network built a new set for the “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” show, using many types of green practices. Before preproduction had even begun, Leo Yoshimori, set designer, worked with Bob Usdin from Showman Fabricators, a local set production firm, to determine ways in which they could improve the sustainability of the set. The location includes:

Sets constructed with FSC plywood (wood that is responsibly harvested).
Low or no volatile organic compounds (VOC) paints, which reduces off-gassing from paint substances.
Bamboo floors throughout the interview area. (Bamboo is highly sustainable due to its quick growth.)
A recycled desk. (The desk used by Fallon is formerly the desk of the set designer Leo Yoshimori.)
Set décor (doors) reclaimed from local salvage stores.
Metal platforms for the band rather than wood.
Eco-friendly equipment

Reclaimed and refurbished seating rather than new seats.
Carpeting on the audience risers and a band platform made of recycled materials.

According to Bryant, “In Studio 8H, where SNL is taped, we are proposing a specialized lighting grid cooling system. Studio 8H is used for many purposes, so the lights are often left on. To protect the lights from overheating, rather than keeping the entire studio at very low temperatures, a cooling system will be directed toward the lighting grid only, reducing the amount of energy needed to keep the lights operating at optimum capability.”

Reusing rather than building from scratch has been an important focus of NBCU's green initiative. When the network transitioned MSNBC's Control Room 3A to HD, the team spent two weeks before beginning the project to assess which equipment could accommodate HD technical specifications.

Bryant says, “There was an enormous time and energy savings in this exercise as wires, cables, consoles, jackfields and racks were used from the former control room — not to mention the incredible amount of waste that was diverted from landfill.”

Consolidating equipment creates a cost savings through energy reduction. Moving more work to desktops, edit and GFX thereby reducing the need for heavy metal systems also saves space, allowing for a more streamlined operation. Bryant says NBCU is still transitioning but looks forward to when the transition is complete and it can accurately assess the savings.

During this recession, it is the perfect time to inventory systems, pare down to what is necessary and to promote better usage of systems that are already in place instead of building more pockets of new systems, Bryant says.

“Going green isn't just about solar panels and wind farms, but about looking at the way your business operates and improving the efficiency of how you produce and distribute content,” she says. “See the opportunity in a down economy with lower numbers of capital projects as a way to focus internally and prepare for the future.”

A flurry of new broadcast equipment has stormed the market, boasting equal or greater features and functionality but in smaller packages. Now there are products that use state-of-the-art FPGAs, which ensure that electrical component usage is minimized. FPGA technology also extends the life of the product as new features and functionality can be added remotely without costly hardware upgrades. In addition, look for products that are RoHS-compliant, meaning they don't contain lead-based components, which are harmful to the environment.