WXIA in Atlanta began its transition to HD in fall 2005 and was on the air in high definition right on time for the Olympics.
WXIA, a Gannett station, choose Ensemble Designs' Avenue frame syncs, video converters and logo inserters for the signal integration portion of the transition.
According to station chief engineer Lenard Thomas, the Avenue gear made the transition from analog to digital easy because the frame sync accepts both analog and digital inputs, and has both analog and digital outputs.
The station was able to install them one at a time for each source and then take the output back to the analog router. When the transition happened, the station simply used the digital output.
WXIA continues to use the analog output of the frame sync for monitoring and for feeds to NBC and CNN. All feeds are synchronized, so the station never has to worry about glitches. The station also uses the 5420 logo inserter to key sidebars onto 4x3 material.
Avenue is a tray-based signal integration system housed in 3RU or 1RU frames. Any combination of HD, SD, ASI and audio modules can be used in the same frame. Modules include HD up- and downconverters, frame syncs, audio embedders, video converters and SPGs. Any number of frames and control panels can be networked together to form a system.
For more information, visit www.ensembledesigns.com.
