WYES, the PBS member station in New Orleans, has installed new routing and master control solutions from Utah Scientific as part of a digital upgrade that also included the addition of new Ikegami HD cameras for a series called “Chef John Besh’s New Orleans.”
The first step was to implement a new signal distribution infrastructure. The station chose a new routing system made up of an UTAH-400 V-288R routing switcher (128 x 128 matrix); a Utah SC-4 control software; a Utah MCP-2020 master control panel; and five MC-400 master control switchers. The setup replaces an analog router and a separate master control switcher.
The WYES engineering team has designed a system that will leverage the router’s internal flexibility to allow them to migrate from its present 1080i infrastructure to 1080p with no need for optional features or a costly future upgrade. In addition, the system can handle legacy controls and router heads, since not all existing WYES equipment needed immediate replacement.
For its studio production, WYES recently purchased three HDK-79EC cameras, bringing its total number of Ikegami HD cameras to 20. Jim Moriarty, vice president and general manager of YES Productions, said the cameras are used on the road in its mobile units as well as in the studio.
Once production has wrapped on the 26-episode “Chef John Besh’s New Orleans,” the Ikegami HDK-79EC HD cameras will be used to rent to local producers for movie production crews in the New Orleans area.
