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The rolling production unit is a common sight in the House hallways.
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Flexible HDTV-on-wheels for coverage
of Congressional hearings has
expanded to the House side of
Capitol Hill, following the recent
delivery of three portable HD video
production systems to the House
Recording Studio from Mobile
Studios Inc.
by John Merli
The HRS provides hundreds of
hours of video communications
resources annually for House members
to communicate in various ways
with their constituents back home—as well as producing and feeding live
TV coverage of committee hearings
to all House offices on the Hill via a
closed-circuit network. (While the
internal network does not yet provide
HD feeds to the offices, all content is
now archived in HD as a future
resource.)
The new HD equipment and support
hardware from Mobile Studios, a
systems integrator and manufacturer
based in Boca Raton, Fla., centers on
what the firm calls its “flip-top flypacks”
(sold under the brand name
PortaCast). Rich Rubin, the company’s
president, said the three HD systems
are chiefly designed to ensure
rapid deployment between various
House hearing rooms and HRS’s base
of operations in the basement of the
Rayburn House Office Building. (The
U.S. Senate Recording Studio also
provides HD services to its 100 members,
mostly for archival purposes.)
Typically, Rubin said, a production
set-up at a hearing room site should
require 15 minutes or less-from
equipment arrival to transmission.
Three separate hearings can be covered
simultaneously.
“The challenge was to create a
multi-compact and portable production
system that could be easily
moved by a single operator to produce
HD-quality recordings,” Rubin
told GV. “It’s a system that meets all
of HRS’s requirements in a very
transportable package-three packages,
actually-with that key provision
that each set-up and operation
normally would be handled by only
one person.”
Each DTV mobile “crash cart” also has the option of immediately
pressing standard DVDs
on-site of the just-concluded
proceedings, upon request
of a House office. (No 1080p
Blu-ray disc capabilities quite
yet.) Rubin said the overall
HRS purchase deal was
worth “close to $1 million.”
Rubin said each mobile
unit includes a “rolling director”
console for switching,
camera control and CG
input-accompanied by a
“rolling accessory case” for
cameras, cables, fiber interfaces
and tripods. Each console
is equipped with a
Panasonic AV-HS400A multiformat
switcher and AWRP655
robotic camera controller-plus a character generator,
audio mixer, HD/SD
DVR, and an interface from Telecast
Fiber Systems for multiple-camera
link-ups.
The HRS, for its part, is careful not
to give even the perception of endorsing
any specific product or service, but
it does acknowledge its responsibilities
and goals—-which include providing
House members with video resources
for broadband outreach, too.
“The hearings are all recorded for
archival purposes, [as well as] being
televised live on our closed-circuit TV
system to all House offices,” said
Regina Schmitt, HRS operations production
manager. “However, the productions
also provide the various
committees with the capability to
Webcast the [hearings] live on their
respective Web sites.”
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Remote controlled cams in a hearing room
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Schmitt said HRS purchased the
new HD mobile carts to accommodate
the high number of committee
requests the studio had been receiving
to request coverage. “Most of
the ‘full committee’ [rooms] are
wired with AV equipment, but the
subcommittees have not reached
that goal yet. Our purpose is to be
available to the committees when
they request their hearings be broadcast
or Webcast [online],” Schmitt
told GV. “Our goal is to provide
members of Congress and committees
with a professional product so
they can communicate to their constituents
and the public.”
Each of the three portable HD setups
includes a 26-inch Panasonic LCD
display (model BT-LH2600) installed in
the PortaCast flip-top cover
for camera previews and
monitoring program output,
while a 19-inch SVGA monitor
situated alongside the
console is used for character
generation. Rubin said each
of the three systems also
includes four Panasonic HD
cameras (model AWHE870N)
with remote control
heads (model AW-PH360) on
Vinten tripods-thus providing
a total of a dozen HD cameras
in all. Rubin said the
“flip-top flypack” design is
unique to his company.
The 12 HD cameras dispersed
equally among the
three mobile units are connected
by “tactical fiber
cable,” as well as small
“throw-down fiber interfaces”
that are installed in aluminum
briefcases positioned below each tripod.
The tripods typically are located
in the back of a hearing room-sited
up high for optimum camera vantage
points (as well as to stay clear of the
hearing room audience).
The fiber throw-downs (custombuilt
by Mobile Studios) send and
receive HD/SD-SDI video and audio
between the cameras and the mobile
console outside the room in the hallway.
Subsequently, Rubin said,
video/audio are fed to the HRS’s main
CR in the Raymond Building basement
via an Evertz transmitter/receiver pair.
The CR finally feeds the U.S. House
inter-office network with SD coverage
that is later archived in HD.
While an initial press release from
the equipment maker (and some subsequent
media reports) mistakenly
noted the newly acquired HD/SD
content also would be used by CSPAN
for that public affairs network’s
national coverage, Rubin said this will
not be the case. C-SPAN operates out
of its own studios on the other side
of Capitol Hill near the
offices of the U.S. Senate
and produces and archives
its own coverage.
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