New Orleans, LA - HDTV - Page 271

That would be it :-)

Pretty neat stuff and a ton of it...
I have pictures if anyone is interested in knowing more about all the equipment that we have down there.

I missed the noon news, but saw the piece they ran on "Studio 8" during the 5:00pm newscast and wondered if any of those pictured but not interviewed might be Louis. I gotta say, the hardware they described sounded like some state of the art stuff, so it looked like a bunch'a cool new toys to me. . .
 

Tell us more. This might be as big a milestone in local programming as back when Bob Breck came to town and almost immediately thereafter brought real weather radar to this market, forcing the other stations to scramble to catch up.

 

Louis, I for one (and I'm sure there are others) would welcome pictures. I still remember the tour that you gave me of Fox 8 a couple of years ago.

Louis.
It looks like some pretty neat stuff down at Benson Tower. Any chance they will move all the studios Down to Benson Tower? I bet the landlord would give Fox8 a good deal on the rent.

Don H

Somebody needs to do something about the audio levels or that mic on the podium used by the players and coaches during the post-game interviews. Way too hot! You could almost hear the questions coming from the others in the room, but garbled and extremely grating on the nerves when the person at the podium spoke.
 

Podium mic is a pool mic feed... I had our guys put in attenuators in the feed to our fiber optic link... but the audio was already badly distorted before it even got to us. Will try to get the Saints people to work on that.

I have pictures and will give you a detailed descripton of the place tomorrow...

I just did a 15 hour day over there..
there are quite a few kinks to iron out.. but we will get it done....

We are quite literally not even finished installing stuff .. most of it has not been tested and calibrated..etc...
so tonights show was a bit rough ;-)
BUt I have been through much worse cluster F*$ks in this business..


Louis

P.S. GIve it some time to settle down CharieB-oz.. and I'll gladly give you a tour of the new place to.

Probably not going to ever happen...
I know that it was discussed early on but it was shot down.

Rather than post a bunch of photos on this forum.. here is a link to my facebook album for the new studio...


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3609575843538.2129680.1397986691&type=1


P.S. I have added descriptions to many of the photos.. will put a more detailed list of the capabilites on here in another post.
Edited by tvengineer - 8/18/12 at 8:34pm

Impressive! It must've involved an incredible amount of research and planning to decide what was needed, then how to get it working together. Did y'all do that in-house or is it the kind of thing where you bring in consultants or factory techs?
 

I whole bunch of both as far as the broadcast equipment goes. No TV station has the staff to do a build out like this anymore. Twenty years ago we probably would have done it all ourselves, but this was built by a company the specializes in building tv production facilitys.

ALso... this entire place is new construction from the ground up (an addition was put onto the side of Benson Tower) so I assume that the arcitects consulted with people who build broadcast facilities.

A little about the building.... There is a generator on the roof capable of running the whole facility, a transfer switch and a technical power UPS system to keep it running in the worst conditions. There are redundant chillers on the roof that are way over sized for the cooling that is required. Variable frequency drives on all of the air handler blowers and the latest computer controls to make it as energy efficient as possible. On top of all of that, the central equipment room has it's own stand alone air conditioning unit to cool the equipment if the main chillers go down.

So, to me, even before you start to look at all of the brodcast equipment, the phisical building itself is very impressive!
Who would have thought that an office suite in a highrise CBD tower would have its own generator.

Hey Louis.
I sent you a FB friend request.

Don H.

Ok.. I have a little more time on this rainy afternoon....


The pictures do a fair job of showing the inside of the suite...
But really.. the facility encompasses much much more than just the inside.

We have two wireless camera setups that consist of small microwave transmitters that mount to the back of a camera. The recieve antennas are mounted on the balcony of the suite. With this set up we have tested one camera and can get reliable video from it all around the upper part of the dome (except the very far side) and even down at street level around the arena. There are also antenna on the roof of the building, so it may be possible for our wireless cameras (with audio) to roam around much of the CBD!

There are two pan/tilt/zoom outdoor HD cameras, one mounted on top of the old Macy's building and one on a pole in the dome parking lot. These will provide pictures of champion square and the crowds coming and going from the dome.

They purchased a large JIB and a camera to go on it... (still have not set it up but it is a big one) :-)

There are three satellite dishes mouted on the roof of the Macy's building, with 5 recievers and one uplink.

All of the above are connected back to the studio via fiber optic cables.

AND..
as if all that were not enough...
we have 36 strands of fiber to the dome loading dock, with a patch panel leading to SIX different spots inside the dome.
From those we can connect one of five "stage boxes"... what that gives us is up to five places inside the dome with multible cameras at each place.
THe total cabability if we were ever to use it would be 16 cameras inside the dome... with 16 microphones... 16 IFB's (talent ear peices) and an almost unlimted number of intercom staitons. Three of the 'stage boxes' can also carry ethernet connections so that if they wanted to they could connect computers and iPads up inside the dome. Each box also has return video so we can send the program out to monitors on the dome floor.. or even send the teleprompter video out to the talent location.
One of the impressive parts about this.. is that all of it is fully connected all of the time... just take a "box" out to the dome.. plug it in.. plug in a camera and a microphone and the video is ready to go on a button on the swithcher and the audio is ready to go by simply assigning it to a fader on the audio console.

There are two way links back and forth to the staion on Jeff Davis so we can recive signals at the tower and use them at the station, or the other way around.

There will be (not installed yet) a link between the intercom system at the tower and on Jeff Davis.... meaning a producer or director on Jeff Davis will be able to talk directly to the talent or camera operator using one of the stage boxes on the floor of the dome! Or anyone else at the tower studio for that matter..

So the capability just for cameras is .. 3 studio, 2 roaming, 2 Pan Tilt remote controlled, 1 on the JIB, and up to 16 on fiber connections inside the dome.24!

All of this can of course be mixed and matched any way you want... For example one client could be using one dome box for a show on one corner of the field, with their camera and microphone routed out to the sat uplink. At the same time another client might be using a roming camer to do interviews with fans outside the dome with their signal route back to Jeff Davis and out from their via fiber to anywhere in the country.. and all the while another client (or WVUE) could be doing a show in the studio and also using any of the remote cameras in and around the dome.

This is going to be one hell of a busy place come super bowl week!

Thanks, Louis. I know you guys have your hands full right now. Great job, though!

Very, very impressive. So, does this mean that Horizon Media will have two facilities to offer-Benson Tower and the 5k sq. ft. space and post production facilities on S. Jeff Davis? Seems to me the two facilities would attract somewhat different clients.

Horizon has been long gone..

But the answer to your questoion is yes... Louisiana Media will have all of that to offer to clients.. the facility at Benson Tower, the huge studio on Jeff. Davis. office space and post production facilities. No problem attracting different clients.. We have had someone editing a movie in the post facility for a few months now.. I don't know who they are are what movie.. I hear that several networks are already very interested in renting the Studio at Benson tower for sporting events.. the more the merrier :-)

Louis.

You mention a Satellite uplink. Do TV stations like yours, typically lease a satellite transponder all the time, that they can grab for ENG? Or do they just get one on an occasional basis?

Don H.

It is usually aways occastional use... I have an account with GEAmericom and can book my own time via the internet. Some network affiliates can get all they want from their network. .I think ABC does that.. don't know how the stations get charged. We can get time from FOX, if the event is something that the network is interested in cherry picking they might give it to us for free.

Our sat truck is not HD so I can book a pretty cheap window of time only using 6mhz of a partial transponder...
the new uplink will be HD... so it will need more expensive sat time to go up HD.., of course it can do SD to.

Hmmm.. that makes me think.. I wonder if we shouldn't try to buy a whole week (wonder what that would cost) leading up to the super bowl?????

Louis

Louis, does Benson Tower have fiber running to the New Orleans Arena?

New Fox Sports New Orleans to Feature 75 Hornets Games
Grabs NBA contests from Cox Sports Television

By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/22/2012 3:57:00 PM


The new Fox Sports New Orleans will air 75 regular season New Orleans Hornets NBA games, starting with the Oct. 31 home opener against the San Antonio Spurs. The New Orleans channel was spun off from Fox Sports Southwest in Dallas, becoming the 21st regional sports network in the Fox Sports family. It will be available to over 1.6 million cable and satellite TV homes.

The Hornets games were formerly on Cox Sports Television.

"We are proud of our relationship with Fox Sports and excited to be part of the launch of a new network that will bring Hornets basketball not only to New Orleans but to all our fans throughout the Gulf South," Hornets president Dennis Lauscha said.

The channel will also feature Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars games, along with local college sports.

"We're anxious to get the season started and to begin our new partnership with the New Orleans Hornets," said Fox Sports New Orleans senior VP and general manager Jon Heidtke. "We look forward to what promises to be an exciting season."

Joel Meyers and David Wesley will be in the booth for the Hornets games, while WVUE New Orleans reporter Jennifer Hale will work the sidelines. Hale is also a sideline reporter for the NFL on Fox.

Fox Sports New Orleans is working with Fox affiliate WVUE on the venture. WVUE and the Hornets share an owner in Tom Benson.

Not as of now.. but I would not be surprised to see fiber runs over there in the near future.

I really don't think that our facility is up to being able to produce the actual game coverage. That is done by YES Productions, usually using two tractor trailor remote trucks. I could easily see our place used to produce pre and post game shows for FOX sports though. Like I said.. this is going to be one busy place :-)

What modulation schemes are being used? Can do you do both C and KU or just one or the other?

Also, is there somewhere else to view the pictures? I don't do the SpaceBook thing anymore

 

Did you try the link? Albums there can be accessed via a "public" URL which does not require others to be a member or logged in to view. If Louis posted *that* URL, you should be able to see his pics OK.

I thought that anyone could click thru to the pictures..

The standard pretty much is DVBS.. our old sat truck does that... Newer encoders somtimes use DVBS2... Our uplink should be installed on Tuesday (weather permiting) so I will know more about what it will do then.

quoting from WikiPedia..

These distribution systems differ mainly in the modulation schemes used and error correcting codes used, due to the different technical constraints. DVB-S (SHF) uses QPSK, 8PSK or 16-QAM. DVB-S2 uses QPSK, 8PSK, 16APSK or 32APSK, at the broadcasters decision. QPSK and 8PSK are the only versions regularly used. DVB-C (VHF/UHF) uses QAM: 16-QAM, 32-QAM, 64-QAM, 128-QAM or 256-QAM. Lastly, DVB-T (VHF/UHF) uses 16-QAM or 64-QAM (or QPSK) in combination with COFDM and can support hierarchical modulation.

Both of our uplinks are Ku only.. I was hoping for a C-band uplink.. but that is much more expensive and more difficult to license.

As for our microwave equipment... they also use DVB usually 16 - QAM.. or QPSK.. however our newest ones also do something called LST... not sure exactly what that is.. but it is used with the portable camera microwaves so I assume it is better at staying locked on to signals from transmitters that are moving around.

The alphabet soup of acronyms is difficult :-)

Don't know if this one is any different....

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3609575843538.2129680.1397986691&type=1&l=7a751f03b0

Even if your settings for photos on FB normally exclude the WWW in general (or certain subgroups within your FB realm of friends), each album has a special URL to allow you to share with others who ordinarily would be unable to see your images. When you go to your photos and select any given album, the publicly accessible URL follows a prompt that reads:

 

 

The original URL you linked above is close to my example, but a different "type" and truncated after that, so I'm uncertain whether I see them b/c I'm already on FB and your normal settings allow viewing, or perhaps the format of the "public" URL for your album is that much different from one of mine. In short, as long as they have the actual "public" URL to the album, anyone can see those photos.

 

Edit: I see you added another URL just before I posted.

That one works!! Very cool... looking now.

The reason I asked about modulations, is I have new toy that does DVBS, DVBS2, QPSK, 8PSK, H8PSK, and 16APSK from what I've seen on the specs.

Want to try ..our truck should be up until around 2am...

AMC-9, Transponder 21, Slot E

17:30 CDT to 02:00 CDT

Uplink 14445.000 Vertical
Downlink 12145.000 Horizontal
Symbol Rate 3.9787
FEC ¾
Mode DVB-S

Couldn't seem to snag it... caught a few others there, even tried the manual entry but nothing. Maybe they weren't transmitting at the time I checked. Thanks for the info though.