Crispin Corp. of Raleigh, N.C., recently completed an automation installation at Free Speech Television, an independent, non-profit TV channel in Boulder, Colo. The system was installed at two broadcast operations centers--Boulder and Castle Rock - for the support of ingest, traffic translation, device and on-air playback control.
The system includes Crispin RapidPlayX, a configurable on-air playback application that provides playlist monitoring and control for the on-air channel. The system also includes three Crispin-supplied workstations, each focused on specific tasks. An eight-port Crispin DeviceServer controls two Omneon servers, a switcher and multiple VTRs.
TurboBrowser, a companion application to RapidPlayX, allows Free Speech operators to locate clips and drag-and-drop them into the playlist or into one of 100 user-defined on-screen file cabinet per channel. Free Speech uses Dubber to control multiple-source devices, allowing acquisition and preparation of video assets for air.
Free Speech TV operators move material (encoded at 8 Mbps) across a LAN in Boulder to portable FireWired 50 GB hard drives, for physical transport to the Omneon RAID-equipped Castle Rock transmission facility. Free Speech also encodes live, satellite-transmitted programming at Castle Rock.
