ST. PAUL, MINN.—HD came to local stations in Hampton Roads area of Virginia, as James City County began offering its public, education and government programming in HD with help from Tightrope Media Systems. Tightrope provided its Cablecast Flex multi-format video servers and Cablecast Broadcast Automation software to power playout for broadcaster’s HD channels.
James City County's Chief Video Engineer Randall Hisle with the new Tightrope Cablecast system.
James City County, which operates the studio in a joint venture with the City of Williamsburg, can now offer three of its four channels in both HD and SD—the county and city’s jointly-run community and education stations, and James City County TV, the county’s government station.
Two Cablecast Flex 4 servers were provided to the broadcaster for playout of the four channels plus dual simultaneous recording capabilities, while also offering two additional, configurable input or output channels for future expansion. The servers also offer integrated up/down conversion for blending existing SD content into HD channels.
In addition, James City County utilizes Tightrope’s Carousel Digital Signage software to manage the bulletin boards related to each of the county’s three channels.
Tightrope Media Systems is a provider of station automation, video servers and live streaming products and is based in St. Paul, Minn.
