Crispin recently completed an automation installation at Free Speech Television, a public-supported, independent, non-profit TV channel located in Boulder, CO. The system was installed at two separate broadcast operation centers in Boulder and Castle Rock, CO, and support media ingest, traffic translation, device control and on-air playback.
The solution includes three Crispin RapidPlayX workstations, an eight-port DeviceServer controling two Omneon servers, a switcher and multiple VTRs. TurboBrowser allows Free Speech operators to quickly search and find any video clip in their system. Once located, operators can drag and drop clips into the playlist for immediate playout or into a user-definable on-screen file cabinet. With approximately 100 file cabinet entries per channel, Free Speech operators can insert alternate events (interstitials, commercials, evergreen material) or entire blocks of material to accommodate last-minute schedule changes.
Free Speech uses Dubber to control multiple source devices, allowing acquisition and preparation of video assets for air. Dubber provides all of the tools needed to speed and simplify the acquisition and preparation of material for fully automated on-air playback.
Free Speech Television operators move program material (encoded at 8Mb/s) across their Boulder LAN to portable FireWire hard drives. Approximately 50 Gigs of material is then physically transported to the Castle Rock transmission facility where they transfer all newly encoded material to the Omneon RAID. In addition to the Boulder material, Free Speech encodes live, satellite-transmitted programming at the Castle Rock facility. Operators conduct quality control to maintain a clean program presentation.
For more information, visit www.crispincorp.com.