Meredith's Local Media Group, owner of 12 television stations in the United States, has installed a fully integrated Harris broadcast equipment and monitoring solution at its newly completed centralcasting hub facility in Atlanta. The solution will allow Meredith to establish a centralized, file-based broadcast structure for its Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, South Carolina and Tennessee stations —delivering a more efficient workflow for its entire eastern U.S. operations.
Larry Oaks, vice president of technology for Meredith, said using a single vendor for the entire integration was key to the broadcaster’s decision to contract with Harris. System scalability and flexibility were also important. They’ve put in place a complete file-based infrastructure in Atlanta to support a minimum of 12 HD streams that are part of a fully centralized model.
Meredith also recently upgraded its HD broadcast operations at KPHO-TV in Phoenix with Harris broadcast equipment, and plans to implement a West Coast hub-and-spoke operation for three stations, which will also install a full complement of Harris equipment.
The integrated Harris ONE solution for the Meredith Atlanta hub features NEXIO AMP advanced media platforms, Predator II multiviewers, Platinum and Panacea routers, ADC automation, NEO conversion gear, 6800+ distribution frames, NetVX MPEG-4/H.264 encoding and video/audio networking, DTS Neural Surround 5.1 and two-channel audio processing, CCS Navigator control and monitoring for all six stations, Videotek test and measurement equipment, and IconMaster master control switchers and branding equipment.
The first three hub locations will go online by the end of 2009, with the final three stations following through mid-2010. Oaks also plans to scale the solution in Phoenix, adding redundant NEXIO servers and CCS Navigator centralized monitoring among other new components.
