Virginia CBS Affiliate Upgrades Newsgathering to HD with Grass Valley

In a move that rounds out a full migration to HD programming, Schurz Communications-owned CBS affiliate WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, is upgrading its existing Aurora system from Grass Valley to GV STRATUS nonlinear media production tools and EDIUS 7 multiformat nonlinear editing software for enhanced production and full HD news delivery.

WDBJ produces six daily newscasts that deliver breaking news and weather updates, as well as locally-produced sports programs for viewers across the state of Virginia. With the help of Grass Valley’s premiere partner Digital Video Group (DVG), and its longstanding relationship with WDBJ, the new HD system was first demoed and then configured to WDBJ’s exact specifications, making the transition easy.

According to Alan Novitsky, Director of Engineering and IT at WDBJ, the move from Aurora to GV STRATUS was a logical transition. “At WDBJ we aim to create an exceptional television viewing experience and the only way to do that is with superior technology in place. Having worked with Grass Valley technology already, we know that it is efficient, intuitive, and easy to use. GV STRATUS will allow us to optimize our workflows and offers collaborative working capabilities so that we can proceed in a truly nonlinear fashion. And EDIUS gives us greater speed and better functionality during the editing process,” he said.

GV STRATUS supports every part of the content creation and distribution lifecycle through a common graphical user interface model. With GV STRATUS, WDBJ is now equipped with the most efficient and complete set of tools for ingest, editing, content aggregation, logging, transfer, and playout.

All of the station’s archived content, proxy files, and metadata will be moved from an existing Aurora system to its new GV STRATUS system, giving it a smooth transition to a newer state-of-the-art news production system without losing pre-existing content. GV STRATUS also combines with EDIUS providing powerful and seamless real-time editing functionality for staff.In combination with its existing K2 Summit® media server, WDBJ will be able to employ several open standards for an expandable foundation for new applications and workflows.

“There are many broadcasters who are still making the very important transition to HD,” commented Andy Jackson, Senior Vice President of North America, Grass Valley. “We’re excited to introduce WDBJ to GV STRATUS’s powerful set of tools that perfectly fulfills the necessary infrastructure required for the delivery of HD content.”

Myanmar’s MRTV Selected Grass Valley for Southeast Asian Games International Broadcast Center
Grass Valley supplied Myanmar’s MRTV with a robust solution for the capture and delivery of live HD coverage of the 2013 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. This solution included a sophisticated broadcast infrastructure for MRTV’s International Broadcast Center (IBC), which was designed to enable unilateral broadcast services for the Games. MRTV operates Myanmar’s state-owned satellite television station MRTV. The station airs 12 local channels and 14 regional channels throughout Myanmar, reaching millions of viewers.

For the IBC, Grass Valley provided the design and installation of the broadcast infrastructure, which included facility routing, ingest, playout, satellite uplink, fiber transmission and venue communications. For a streamlined workflow, MRTV purchased 50 seats of GV STRATUS nonlinear media production tools, which were used by IBC broadcast staff as the primary platform for ingest, editing and content management.  GV STRATUS was additionally used by individual broadcasters to search content and edit complete packages for their own broadcasts. The system was used in tandem with EDIUS Pro 7 multiformat nonlinear editing software and a Trinix NXT multiformat digital video routing switcher with multiviewer—incorporating advanced multiviewer circuit technology and eliminates the need for secondary external components and connections.

Rounding out MRTV’s IBC solution, Grass Valley partnered with Broadcast Solutions, a Singapore-based rental and production company, to supply two Kayenne Video Production Center switchers and 18 LDX WorldCam advanced imaging camera systems. Coverage was broadcast live throughout the region as well as distributed to multiple platforms including the official SEA Games YouTube channel.

“We wanted to equip the IBC with state-of-the-art and growth-oriented technology, and Grass Valley was the natural choice to help us with this,” said U Tint Swe, Director General at MRTV. “In an impressive seven months, Grass Valley not only designed and built the IBC’s broadcast infrastructure, but also the support system for satellite uplink and fiber transmissions. Our broadcast center delivered high-quality coverage of the SEA Games without a hitch,” U Tint Swe continued.

“Grass Valley was so pleased to help provide coverage of this momentous live sporting event in Myanmar,” remarked Stephen Wong, Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific, Grass Valley. “In the competitive world of live sports, it’s essential that MRTV had the requisite architecture in place to ensure top-quality HD broadcast was delivered for the SEA Games, as well as a flexible solution that can keep them on the leading edge in this ever changing broadcast environment.”

Disclaimer: Grass Valley is not an official sponsor of the 2013 Southeast Asian Games in Myanmar, nor is it affiliated in any way with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Southeast Asian Games Federation or Olympic Council of Asia.