Page 14 - IP Audio for TV Production And Beyond

REAL WORLD STUFF...
IP and the 80 Percent Rule
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Senior audio mixer for the WCCB-TV morning show, Richard England, is shown here in front of the Dimension Three Touch audio console.
Our philosophy is to opera onally stay within the system box...doing 80% that works consistently and reliably on a daily basis rather than 100%
“that doesn’t.”
From its WCCB-TV studio in Charlo e, the group produces WOLO-TV’s newscasts from nearby Columbia, South Carolina. All studio cameras, mics, IFB, prompter, weather system, and set monitors in the downtown Columbia newsroom are linked to Charlo e by IP. In Charlo e, it all goes through produc on and master control, and is then re-encoded with all the sub-channels and sent back to Columbia via IP transport for transmission.
The same setup is used for some programming for WFXB-TV in Myrtle Beach. Mid-day weather is presented from the Columbia newsroom, through WCCB-TV produc on, and fed back via IP to WFXB-TV for air. News and weather content can be originated from any of the three loca ons for all three sta ons, as was the case during Hurricane Ma hew.
Those are the words of Bob Davis, Director of Engineering and Opera ons for regional broadcaster Bahakel Communica ons, headquartered in Charlo e, NC, and they make good sense to any broadcaster who wants to move into IP work ows without making a mess of things.
As he explains, “Providing a solid and stable system design for our produc on and opera ons teams while keeping them within well-de ned parameters is the key to our success in the world of IP video and audio.”
Bahakel has been perfec ng the 80 percent mindset for two years, during which me the group has linked up three of its six sta ons over IP for live, daily produc on.