CBS News Rolls Out New HD Room
More
feeds, more information bring new power to broadcast center
NEW
YORK
In
just a few weeks, “CBS Evening News” will mark a major milestone in
its history—broadcasting in high definition. To reach this moment
meant building a new HD control room, designated “CR47HD,” in the
CBS Broadcast Center. CR47HD will normally operate with the existing
news studio, Studio 47, albeit with new HD cameras.
“The
current Control Room 47 was built in 1985, and a lot has changed since
then in how news is gathered,” said Frank M. Governale, vice president
of operations at CBS News. “With video compression and wide data pipes,
we’re able to do multicamera remotes without sending out mobile units.
Instead, we’re bringing back all the cameras to the Broadcast Center
so we can produce and switch the broadcast from New York.”
The
new control room was designed to take in many more simultaneous feeds
than before, accepting feeds arriving on fiber as data circuits or
via satellite.
“It
also has the ability to provide tally, communications, telephony and
even remote sub-switching to the field,” Governale said. “This allows
the New York control room the ability to switch a local routing switcher
at the remote so tape machines, edit machines, cameras, etc., can
be routed to the production switcher by the TD. The new MPEG-4 HD
encoders we have are capable of feeding ASI and/or IP. We’re currently
planning on using ASI for the prime and IP for backup.”
VIDEO PRODUCTION CONTROL
The
video production control room occupies 1,156 square feet and has two
full tiers of seating and a smaller third tier.
In
front of the first tier is the monitor wall, which is supported by
an adjustable strut and rail system, and is equipped with a combination
of Panasonic plasma displays, as well as Sony and Ikegami LCD monitors.
The plasma displays, fed via an Evertz MVP Multiviewer Processing
System, are used for confidence monitoring of multiple feeds. The
monitor wall also includes Image Video tally and under-monitor displays.
The
front tier is occupied by the TD, director, assistant director, production
assistant, and, depending on the broadcast, by an executive producer.
The
TD position is outfitted with an 80-input Sony MVS-8000G multiformat
production switcher with four M/E busses. The switcher has access
to 22 feeds from the Broadcast Center MAX plant router, as well as
feeds from the new local Evertz 162x162 HD/SD multiformat routing
switcher. SD feeds are automatically upconverted to HD.
The
second and third tiers of consoles contain the producer stations.
Gear for each station includes a pair of RTS/Telex intercom keypanels
(one main, the other an expansion panel) for intercom and a separate
main keypanel for IFB and talkback to talent. The intercom system
consists of a 384-port RTS/Telex Adam with some RVON VoIP capability,
plus a two-frame RTS/Telex Cronus for IFB routing.
Also
at each producer’s position is a dual TFT video monitor panel, Wohler
audio monitor, Evertz push-button router control panel and a small
mixer to allow producers to add sources like intercom, router output,
or phone to their headsets.
Suspended
from the ceiling of the second and third tiers are eyebrow monitors
fed from the house RF system. Each monitor feed is individually selectable.
To
the rear of the production control room is a separate “mini-fishbowl”
216-square-foot meeting room that can be closed off from the rest
of the operation. It was designed for pre-production preparation for
back-to-back productions.
CAMERAS
AND TERMINAL GEAR
Also
inside the production control room are racks for the video operators
and lighting. The VO racks contain the remote panels for Sony camera
control units which are lo-cated in the equipment room. There are
12 CCUs and this number can be increased to 16.
CBS
outfitted Studio 47 with eight Sony HDC-1400 studio cameras fitted
with Canon lenses and mounted on Vinten robotic pedestals. The studio
also employs four Sony HDC-X310 POV cameras equipped with Canon lenses.
The
CCUs themselves are located in a 680-square-foot equipment room that
also contains frames for the router, video switcher and audio mixing
systems. There are also a number of Evertz embedders and de-embedders
(CBS distributes embedded signals throughout its plant), along with
upconverters with built-in color correctors, AES distribution amps,
audio A/D converters and fiber-optic converters.
The
upconverter control system was specially constructed for the facility
by Evertz. That resulted in the new Evertz CP-3216-PROC panel with
the familiar knobs and controls used by the video operators. Upconverters
are selected via the local router control panel, the router crosspoint
is established and the CP-3216-PROC then controls that channel.
AUDIO
The
new audio control room consists of two rooms separated by a sliding
glass isolation door. There’s a 324-square-foot audio mixing room
and a 180-square-foot room for communications, jackfields and equipment
racks. This is a departure from previous audio control room designs
at CBS, which combined both operations and equipment into a single
room.
The
main digital audio mixing system is a Calrec Alpha with Bluefin DSP
with 480-channel processing paths, 20 auxes and 48 multitracks. The
96-fader control surface is configured in a U-shape to fit the control
room. The news broadcasts will be mixed in stereo, and the console
will produce the mix-minus feeds to the IFB system.
The
facility is also equipped with a Calrec Omega digital audio console
with Bluefin DSP and has 160 channel processing paths, 20 auxes and
48 multitracks and a 40 fader desk. This second console will be used
for music, digital cart machines and as a backup to the main mixing
system.
The
communication room is used primarily for audio patching and for establishing
intercom, IFB and phone communications with remotes.
Near
the control room are two announce booths with access to all feeds.
One voice-over room is set up for standard announcing tasks such as
show opens and closes. The second booth can accommodate three or four
people and may be used for simultaneous translations.
NOISE
REDUCTION
“One
of the design goals was to keep the noise level down,” Governale said.
He
was referring not just to environmental noise produced by HVAC equipment
and sound leakage between rooms, but also people noise—chatter—inside
the room.
That
goal was met in a number of ways. In previous CBS designs, the on-air
graphics operators were located in the production control room, but
this arrangement was changed in the new facility.
“This
forces the production people to use the intercom and not just yell
back to graphics,” Governale said.
Also
staff members do not have to walk through the audio area to get to
the production control room.
Another
previous source of noise came from the constant production staff queries
concerning remote check-ins and establishment of communications. This
was remedied by a check-in tally system CBS designed and built and
which is tied into the under-monitor display system.
“When
the operations manager orders up a remote he enters the information
into a yet to be named system,” Governale said. “This information
is available for everyone to see, including audio. When the remote
line comes up, the audio communications technician will check that
remote in and give them the proper IFB. Once he’s done, he has a computer
and touchscreen for entering in the RTS mnemonic and for triggering
a UMD tally in the multipix display so everyone in the control room
is aware that the remote is ready for air and what the RTS mnemonic
is so they can talk to the remote.”
The
new control room was designed, engineered and installed by CBS Engineering.
The project architect was HLW, the acoustical consultant was Shen
Milsom & Wilke and the furniture manufacturer was TBC.
By
Mary C. Gruszka www.tvtechnology.com
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