Mountain Lake PBS‚ a PBS member station in Plattsburgh, NY, has upgraded its production capabilities to full HD with the addition of a revamped control room and four Hitachi Z-HD5000 HD cameras that are now used to produce two weekly half-hour segments for its “Mountain Lake Journal” news and public affairs show.
Charlie Zarbo, director of engineering for Mountain Lake PBS, said the station was using existing SD cameras that were 22 years old when it made the decision to buy Hitachi cameras with 8in color viewfinders. He was impressed with the picture quality of the cameras and pleased that the camera package fit within its budget.
The cameras are switched in the control room with a new Broadcast Pix Granite 5000 2M/E HD live production system, which features integrated functionality including graphics, clip/still store, six keyers and Fluent-view multi-image monitoring.
In addition to local programming, Mountain Lake PBS also produces long-form documentaries, some of which are chosen for broadcast nationwide on the PBS network. Zarbo said the new Hitachi cameras will contribute to the quality of the long-form programming it produces for local and national audiences.
The Z-HD5000 cameras feature 14-bit analog-to-digital conversion, advanced digital signal processing and HD picture enhancement tools.