Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG) has begun transitioning its stations that do news to HD production and is installing Snell & Wilcox’s Kahuna production switcher as part of the upgrade to its facilities.
The independent station group, which operates 58 television stations in the United States, will initially deploy Kahuna switchers at a variety of its stations in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. These stations include affiliates of the ABC, CBS and FOX networks.
The Kahuna’s multiformat processing and effects capabilities, as well as its color correction and still store features, were cited as key deciding factors. The switcher includes an intuitive layout, comprehensive DVE effects and transition tools that will enable SBG to simplify the production of its HD news content. Kahuna’s FormatFusion technology will allow Sinclair stations to blend their substantial SD archives seamlessly into HD productions as they gradually migrate their stations to HD.
FormatFusion allows simultaneous SD and HD operations in the same mainframe and on the same control panel. This vastly simplifies the HDTV transition for broadcasters by eliminating the need for external HDTV up/down/crossconverters in the live production environment, as well as the cost and the signal path delay associated with these products. Kahuna has a small size mainframe, low weight and low power consumption, and it has been integrated with dozens of third-party products including routers, servers, automation systems and controllers.
For more information, visit www.snellwilcox.com.