Trans Video Communications Studios’ NET

When Trans Video Communications (TVC) decided to launch the NET, a 24-hour-a-day, seven days a week, faith-based cable TV network based in Brooklyn, NY, it turned to Broadcast Integration Services (BIS) for the design and build of its new facility.

The new facility needed to support TVC’s 24/7 operation and the focal point of the network’s launch — “Currents,” a half-hour news magazine program produced daily for air. The design of the new facility would need to integrate all the elements of daily news production, programming and live production together. The sharing of all media resources and leveraging current advances in technology was going to be key to the facility’s success.

To achieve a high level of interoperability among systems and create efficiency during daily production while maintaining quality, BIS and TVC implemented an integrated production system (IPS). BIS and TVC leveraged advances in control room automation to enable a smaller staff to execute production and meet the demands of a daily news show. The IPS streamlined and automated a number of systems during production, including the production switcher, audio mixer and graphics/CG. The result was the building of a highly integrated production facility that minimized operating expenses and maximized production capabilities.

From field acquisition to editing to live production, all elements are integrated together. Daily field footage is shot on Panasonic P2 media and then directly transferred to Final Cut Pro (FCP) stations located in the newsroom. Show elements created in FCP are directly rendered to a series of Harris HDX video servers. The servers are configured to allow the FCP stations to access all the media located on the servers and directly render or mix elements to produce show segments instantaneously for daily production.

The production staff composes daily shows by entering show elements into the automation production playlist software. The software directly interfaces with all equipment during production. Users can select video clips stored on the Harris servers. Camera shots via Telemetric’s robotic touch-screen system, graphics from the Avid Deko and audio accessed from the Yamaha LS32 digital audio mixer are all controlled and automated during production. The system’s ease of operability allows users to adjust elements on the fly. Additional operational and maintenance efficiencies were achieved by implementing a Harris Platinum video routing system.

This system included an integral Centrio multiviewer and monitoring system. This integration of the router and multiviewer allows TVC production staff to display any router source instantly on any of the three main production control room screens, including tally and UMD information.

BIS also designed the production control room to operate independently without the use of the IPS, giving TVC ultimate flexibility to determine the operating mode that best suits its production needs.