Brazil’s TV Cultura Migrates to High-Definition Production with Grass Valley Technology

For the
past year, Grass Valley

has been working with TV Cultura, a publicly-funded broadcast
network located in Sao Paulo,
Brazil, to migrate
its main broadcast and production facility to a file-based, digital, and
high-definition (HD) production infrastructure. The project was initiated to
comply with the country’s government mandate to begin broadcasting digitally in
2008.

As part of
a multi-phase project that began in June 2008, and which will be completed in
February 2009, a multitude of Grass
Valley equipment has been
installed and is now operational throughout the TV Cultura main broadcast and
production facility. After an initial investment of more than $5 million (US), TV Cultura has expanded the project and
increased its commitment to Grass
Valley technology with a
second purchase order, valued at approximately $2.5 million.

Among the
details of the latest stage of the project: a new news studio has been equipped
with four LDK 4000 Elite HD cameras; a second technical control room will
feature a Trinix HD router and dozens of Grass Valley signal conversion
products; three K2 media servers have been added to eight existing Grass Valley
servers for program ingest and playout; the news department has upgraded its editing
platform with 10 Aurora Edit HD workstations; a new production facility will
broadcast the UNIVESP channel using three LDK 4000 Elite HD cameras, two K2
media servers, a Kayak HD200 production switcher, dozens of GeckoFlex modular
products, and a Jupiter routing control system. The existing production area
will be upgraded with three LDK 4000 Elite cameras to allow virtual set
production.

“Grass Valley
has proven to be a valuable partner throughout this project, which has provided
us with a firm foundation for our production activities both now and into the
future,” says Jose Chaves, technical engineering director at TV Cultura. “Grass Valley
has the resources and scope of manpower to support our projects and we are
happy to be working with them on this and other projects as well.”

TV
Cultura’s second OB van is being built to
include six Grass Valley LDK 4000 Elite HD cameras, a Concerto router, Kayak
HD250 switcher, and various modular products.

“TV Cultura
has long been a leader among other broadcasters in the region and this project
is being looked at as a blueprint for others to follow,” says Jeff Rosica, SVP
of Grass Valley. “The size and scope of this project clearly illustrates that Grass Valley
has the experience and technical knowledge to help TV Cultura achieve its
goals, on time and on budget.”

The
multi-faceted installation includes the digital conversion of TV Cultura’s
entire production and post-production operations which feature a series of new
facilities and upgrades to existing plants within the region. Grass Valley
engineers also installed equipment aboard two new OB
vans that are capable of producing live event programming in both standard- and
high-definition (SD/HD) formats. Grass
Valley is also providing
training commissioning of the equipment and a long-term service agreement.