Bill Robert
WILMINGTON, MASS.
Wilmington Community Television is a public, educational and government (PEG) access organization. Since our inception in 1987, we have been keeping local residents in touch with their community. For most of that time, programs were submitted to us on S-VHS tape and physically loaded into our 11-deck, automated playback system.
MOVING INTO A NEW WORLD
In June 2006, our operation entered the digital world with the addition of our first digital video server and system controller, the Leightronix Nexus. This added greatly to our playback capability, as it allowed most of our programming to exist in the digital realm. In addition, the system's rock-solid reliability made life so much easier from both an operations and maintenance standpoint.
One of the reasons I selected the Nexus was due to the ease in which it could be connected to our old Leightronix controller to give us more flexibility with our various program sources. The networking component of the Nexus server is a major part of our overall digital workflow plan.
We passed another milestone in 2009 as we moved into a new facility, which included a main studio, a self-contained mini-studio, and a combination voice-over booth and radio studio. It was at this time that we decided to expand our digital capability as part of the relocation and expansion effort. What we needed was a flexible and easily managed digital production and playback system, and also one that increased our channel capacity. We soon decided on another Nexus unit, along with the company's Total Share storage option.
BEST OF OLD AND NEW
Our expanded Leightronix video server system now consists of two Nexus units tied into our main computer network, as well as our legacy PRO-16 controller, with everything being managed from a single location via the included WinLGX software. The Nexus Total Share option allows the two servers to share a single storage device through a secondary network link, thus creating a shared storage, multichannel video server environment. This has allowed us to expand our overall video server channel capacity to four channels without replacing the original 2-channel Nexus.
Our current digital workflow scheme includes elements from both the old and the new. Some of our old S-VHS decks and DVD players are still in service in case we need them for quick media playback and real-time program ingest. The programs that are submitted on DVD are now read directly into the system as digital media files using the included Total Import application. Producers can also edit footage shot in the field using either of our two dedicated dual-bay editing rooms (we have one Final Cut Mac suite and one Adobe Premiere PC suite), and then submit the program as an MPEG-2 digital media file. Live and live-to-tape programs produced in our studios are now recorded using our new PEGVault-SD digital video encoders, which automatically transfer the files created to the Nexus storage drives via the in-house network.
Once the new gear arrived on site, installation was quick and simple. The Leightronix support techs helped us in setting set up the Total Share capabilities and our new dual Nexus system was up and running in no time.
Bill Robert has served as operations manager at Wilmington Community Television for the past four years. He has 20 years experience in community media and broadcast radio and television. He may be contacted atbrobert@wctv.org.
For additional information, contact Leightronix at 800-243-5589 or visitwww.leightronix.com.
