WEST LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
KJLA runs three operations—in addition to being an over-the-air broadcaster, we're also the Los Angeles home for LATV Network, America's first bilingual Latino contemporary digital entertainment and musical network. KJLA is also the Los Angeles home to Jewelry Television, a home shopping enterprise that caters to jewelry lovers. Our signals are carried on 2.5 million cable homes, more than 1.5 million DBS satellite homes, and are also available off-air.
Eddie Hernandez We started using Ensemble Designs' video switches and audio embedders several years ago when we upgraded our satellite facility to digital. The Avenue chassis holds 10 cards, allowing the embedders, switches and video converters to all go in the same card cage. The Avenue architecture accommodates HD and SD cards side-by-side too. We have about 15 Avenue cages for all of the switches, d.a.s, converters and ASI modules in our facility.
SIGNAL SWITCHING AND MONITORING
One of the most visible uses for the Avenue hardware is in the routing of signals here. We employ two of the Avenue 4430 8x1 routers at the studio for monitoring all of our station's encoder outputs. We also use an Avenue 4430 at a remote transmitter site for switching feeds on our transmitter-to-studio link. Since our facilities provide broadcast services for three video operations, it's critical to be able to troubleshoot problems quickly and easily, no matter where our engineer ing support staff is located.
We use the Avenue PC control software and SNMP for monitoring points in our various signal paths. The system allows us to test for signal presence, as well as make signal parameter adjustments. This control system is very convenient, as I can log onto it at my desk here at KJLA or from home. We've also created a virtual private network that allows us to connect to the remote Avenue PC software and test all of the signal paths in the station. We can also look at each path at the transmitter site to quickly determine where problems are located. The system allows us to move through the signal path, and if anything suspicious is spotted, I can call personnel there and have them look at it on their end of things. The system also allows us to bring in various equipment manufacturers' support teams if necessary.
As I mentioned, the Ensemble switching system sees a lot of use in connection with our transmitter-to-studio microwave link. We can switch feeds from remotely located cameras and off-air receivers with the Avenue 4430 8x1 routing switchers and even loop our microwave feed back down the transmitter to studio link for testing.
EARLY SNMP CONTROL SYSTEM IMPLEMENTER
We were one of the first customers to work with Ensemble on integrating SNMP into the Avenue product lineup. Ensemble was great in helping us implement our particular applications and requests within SNMP. The Ensemble Avenue system has become an integral part of our three operations here at KJLA.
Eddie Hernandez has been a broadcast engineer at KJLA television since 2006. He's responsible for production operations as well as equipment repair and maintenance. He may be contacted atehernandez@kjla.com.
For additional information, contact Ensemble Designs at 530-478-1830 or visitwww.ensembledesigns.com.
