WINNER
Tribune
Category
New studio technology — nonbroadcast
Submitted by
The Systems Group
In fall of 2005, Tribune consolidated its Washington, D.C., publishing and broadcast bureaus into a single facility on the seventh floor of the historic Woodward & Lothrop Building. The Tribune media center houses bureaus for Tribune Broadcasting and Tribune newspapers such as the “Los Angeles Times,” the “Chicago Tribune” and “Newsday.” The Systems Group (TSG) designed and integrated Tribune Broadcasting's TV news bureau into the media center.
TSG was charged with updating the bureau to a digital infrastructure, integrating key pieces of legacy analog equipment, providing extensive satellite downlink and uplink capabilities and improving workflow through server-based nonlinear editing and playback. A key consideration in equipment selection and system design was operational simplicity for the staff.
The Grass Valley DNP platform was chosen for its integration of desktop editing, ENPS interface, and server-based recording and playout with M-Series servers. An SD-SDI facility router using embedded audio ties the new digital systems to islands of analog equipment converted with Evertz modular cards.
Two operationally identical control rooms include Sony DFS-700 switchers and Mackie 24-8 bus mixers to allow the bureau to provide two simultaneous feeds to its more than two dozen sister stations across the country.
An Evertz MVP system provides control room operators with flexible video monitoring of feeds with 40 video inputs driving three large DLP screens. A Raritan Paragon KVM matrix (for 16 users and 64 computers) connects operators in control rooms, at the news desk and to resources in the equipment room.
Vincor installed four steerable satellite dishes ranging in size from 3.6m to 4.9m on the rooftop. The 4.9m dish is used daily for uplinks to Tribune stations, including from Boston, New Orleans and Sacramento, CA.
