NORWALK, CONN.—Cablevision News, News 12 Connecticut, a 24-hour local news channel serving southwestern Connecticut, recently deployed the Matrox Convert DVI Plus to convert a computer signal into a format that can easily be integrated into their daily production.
The channel recently began driving social media content to air and also started broadcasting remote weather cameras. Both initiatives require taking video from a PC and incorporating it into daily broadcasts.
“We developed a custom web application that lets us aggregate incoming social media content into a playlist,” said Studio Operations Manager Travis Machacek. “After a producer builds a playlist of comments and/or photos, he puts the playlist into ‘air’ mode, which formats the content into a particular look that is stylized to match our station’s graphical design. We use Matrox Convert DVI Plus to convert the DVI signal from the PC that is running the web application to an HD-SDI feed that can be broadcast through our production switcher in the control room.”
The anchors interact directly with viewers via social media, and by taking a converted feed from a laptop on set, an anchor can choose a region of interest of what they want to share.
Although News 12 Connecticut’s primary need is to convert a DVI signal to HD-SDI, it is also important to their social media application that Matrox Convert DVI Plus lets them expand a region of the screen that they want to scale out to the production switcher.
News 12 also uses the converter to broadcast remote weather cameras, which are a series of IP cameras installed throughout their viewing area. The software application on the server that receives the feeds allows them to view each camera full screen on the server, and the Matrox Convert DVI Plus converts the DVI output of the server to an HD-SDI feed that can be taken live to air via the production switcher. They also split this HD-SDI feed into their weather graphics computer to be used in the meteorologist’s presentation.
“Matrox Convert DVI Plus is proving to be a valuable asset to getting additional weather content on the air via our converted weather cameras,” said Machacek. “As a 24-hour local news station, we can now give our viewers a live look at the weather in their community multiple times an hour, every day of the week.”
