|
|
 |
|
Dec 21, 2005
|
 |
|
 |
 |
Looking fine at 40
New facility for Penn State Public Broadcasting
by Nancy Caronia
|
|
|
When Penn State Public Broadcasting (PSPB) moved into its first facilities on the Penn State campus, it was understood that the location was temporary. Housed in an old classroom building, rooms were retrofitted to accommodate PSPB. There was only one broadcasting studio, and it had low ceilings with no sound cushioning. Plus, the nearby airport created a challenge -- each time a plane flew overhead, production had to be stopped. Inclement weather was no different; if it rained and the show was live, the crew somehow worked through the storm.
"Our editing stations were shoved into former classrooms and offices, the production room had a place for a TV, a director, and that was it," said Kerry Trout, television technician and editing. "Our broadcast booth was the size of a walk-in closet. Our maintenance shop was an old scene shop, and the studio itself had enough room to put only one and a half sets. We were maxed out."
According to Ted Krichels, associate vice president for outreach and general manager, PSPB, the station waited. Patiently. For 40 years. This year, its "temporary" facility was replaced.
"It was nice to get a permanent home," Krichels said.
A Move Toward Organization
The new facility, built by Penn State, is in the shared 96,000 square-foot Outreach Building located within the campus's Innovation Park. PSPB has been allotted almost 35,000 square feet within the building -- enough for three television production studios, three radio studios, five video editing suites, and four audio editing suites. Oh, and soundproofing that even the most sophisticated facility would find amenable.
 |
| After 40 years in a converted classroom building, Penn State Public Broadcasting has moved into a new facility. PHOTO BY RICH JOHNSON |
While PSPB's administrative offices were previously located in another "temporary" building, the space in the Outreach Building was designed so PSPB could have those offices and its production facilities in one location. The new digs, in addition to its studios and offices, include a green room, dressing rooms, set storage, production studio control rooms, broadcast control, and equipment rack rooms.
"It's not that we have more space, it's just that it's better organized," noted Krichels.
Station manager Tracy Vosburgh concurred, "We moved from a very dysfunctional work environment to an extraordinarily functional one."
In addition to PSPB, the Outreach Building houses Penn State Continuing Education, Penn State World Campus, and Outreach Marketing, enabling PSPB to collaborate with community and university endeavors in a more comprehensive way. "The potential collaboration between all the organizations within the Outreach Building is part of what makes the move important. As a public broadcasting station licensed to a major university it will make our mission more far-reaching," said Krichels. "When we designed the building, we had a long program planning process that included leadership from distance learning, cooperative education, and continuing education. We were looking to this facility to encourage collaboration.
"Our producers are on the same floor as the distance education instructional designers. They're in a position where, over a period of time, more natural collaboration will occur. We'd like to share our second studio with cooperative education. This way we can work together to create content and work jointly to seek external funding to automate the studio with new digital equipment. This new location is going to pay big dividends over the long run."
Wide Open Spaces
While the old production studio was centrally located on campus, the space couldn't accommodate groups larger than what might fit around a conference table, putting constraints on audience participation productions. When planning the new facility, PSPB felt it was important that the space be a "home we like to invite people into," said Vosburgh. "We have lots of space in this new location -- functional workspace, production space, and community space."
The lobby area is seen as a fourth broadcasting studio and, according to Trout, is as large as PSPB's old studio. An open, airy two-story space complete with skylight, the lighting grid and broadcast supply boxes were incorporated into the architecture to enable production needs. Color balanced lights were purchased to permit daytime and nighttime shoots, and cameras from the main studio are rolled out whenever a show is scheduled in the lobby.
Vosburgh said that the most significant programming change is the addition of Lobby Talk, an audience participation show. Already two broadcasts have been completed and more are planned. The first, an interview with Ray Suarez, senior correspondent on PBS's The NewsHour, was broadcast the day the facility was dedicated.
"We covered it, broadcast it, and disseminated it through various avenues including the Web," she said. "We can respond to community need and community interest in a cost effective way that we weren't able to in the old space. It was hard to have an audience involved in a production, even as an observer. We now have a lobby that is completely outfitted for production that can seat 100 people. We can broadcast at the drop of the hat; it's not expensive or hard to do."
Also rolled out at the dedication of the Outreach Building was the announcement that PSPB was consolidating its call letters. WPSX-TV and WPSU-FM have been changed to WPSU TV/FM. According to Krichels, the change helped to clarify and solidify PSPB's identity in the ensuing digital age.
"As we complete digital conversion, we have the potential not only of multicasting from one channel, but also moving into video streaming and podcasting," he said. "We also wanted to reflect the fact that we are part of Penn State. The consolidation at this time made sense."
A PBS member station, WPSU-TV broadcasts 8,760 hours of programming that is sent to more than 500,000 households in the 29-county central Pennsylvania and southern New York region. WPSU-FM provides music and news service to listeners on the Web and 250,000 homes in 13 counties of north central Pennsylvania. In addition, PSPB's Media Solutions group provides creative services to Penn State and the community, and its Media Sales department markets and distributes educational and special interest videos and CD-ROMs.
But Krichels said PSPB is not stopping there. "We're also a member of a research channel consortium. Satellite on research, while not garnering large audiences, is being seen throughout the world; it's a budding C-SPAN of the mind. That is also part of our strategy."
Something Old, Something New
The actual move from one facility to the other occurred during the summer months. The television production studio went dark the second week of July and came back online during the first week of August. The radio facility lost hardly any broadcast time because the broadcast stream was shifted out of house. "All the cutovers were pretty darn seamless. Our engineering staff, who worked tirelessly, did a tremendous job in keeping us going," said Trout.
As for production studio space, one of the major problems in the old studio was that the ceiling was low and the air conditioning units were located above it on the roof. The new studio has a 25-foot ceiling and it has been acoustically deadened with five feet of dead air space (a false ceiling) before hitting the deck of the roof.
The smaller studios, including the audio studios, don't have high ceilings, but they're still well isolated with compressed fiberglass on the walls and ceilings. The audio studio was given the most stringent noise rating -- a slab was poured, then rubber grommets were added before another slab was poured. The entire room essentially floats and is decoupled from the rest of the building.
Toronto-based integrator Azcar knew that the core infrastructure would eventually need to be digital and pointed PSPB toward a Grass Valley router that would be capable of handling analog, digital, and HD. "The beauty of the Grass Valley router is we have analog and digital cards in it, and no matter what source we feed it, we can get out of it digital or analog," noted Trout. "It's a seamless transition that saved us a lot of money in conversion, because the router takes care of all of the conversion and it allowed us to keep some of our analog equipment."
Also purchased for the new building were an RTS communication system, a Miranda switcher, and an NVision automation system. "The greatest challenge was getting all three of them to speak the same language so the router, the broadcast switcher, and the automation could work seamlessly. None of the companies had ever worked together before, and it took a little work by Azcar, but they got it to work," said Trout. "We are public television and we knew if we didn't get it right this time, we wouldn't get it right for the next 25 years."
A Chryon Duet system was purchased because PSPB does a significant amount of sports -- and the Duet allows users to build packages in-house for mobile trucks, which PSPB rents whenever they broadcast a game. A Grass Valley Kayak production switcher was also purchased to help with conversion.
All the cameras and tripods were moved from the old facility to the new; the studio cameras are Philips analog cameras and the field cameras are a variety of Panasonic DVCPRO models. The facility is looking into HD for the field due to its cost effectiveness, but no decision has been made as of yet.
Five Final Cut Pro video editing stations and three Avid Pro Tools audio editing stations were also moved. In addition, a Sony DMX-R100 digital audio console that was purchased a few years ago was upgraded when it moved to the new facility.
Automated scheduling programs are being currently evaluated. "We've been working off of notebooks and pieces of paper and the schedule sits in one person's head, our production manager Dave McCardy, and so we're looking at a software solution now. Hopefully in the next few months we'll have a solution," said Vosburgh.
The staff of 13 full-time producers and four videographers and editors, while relatively large for a PBS member station, is kept busy with on-air work, original programming, and creative services work that is outsourced to both the university and the community. The stations call-in programs rely heavily on the Penn State faculty, and the president of the university even has his own call-in show. With the advent of the new facility, relatively complicated productions are easier to produce.
"We have many faculty experts and in the past if they wanted to be on an uplink with CNN or MSNBC, we might have had to say, 'Sorry, we can't do it, we're shooting Scholastic Scrimmage in the studio,'" said Vosburgh. "But now with the smaller studios we're able to do that kind of programming easily and quickly."
MORE INFO
Apple www.apple.com
Avid Technology www.avid.com
Azcar www.azcar.com
Chyron www.chyron.com
Digidesign www.digidesign.com
Grass Valley www.thomsongrassvalley.com
Miranda www.miranda.com
N-version www.nversion.com
Panasonic www.panasonic.com/broadcast
PSPB http://live.psu.edu
RTS www.telex.com
Sony www.sony.com/government
BK Precision Video Monitor Testers
Broad-line distributor web site features real-time stock status and pricing, online ordering, RFQ, technical support, product datasheets and photos. Audio Visual Equipment Rentals: $49 Delivery Anywhere
Daily/Weekly Rentals. Nationwide Service. Low Prices! Projectors, Screens, PA Systems, Laptops, Plasmas, Camcorders & More. Order Online or by Phone. Search for Audio and Video Cable
Broad-line distributor web site features real-time stock status and pricing, online ordering, RFQ, technical support, product datasheets and photos.
|
|
|
|
Government Video is part of the NewBay Media Community
copyright 2007© NewBay Media LLC.
810 Seventh Avenue, 27th Floor New York, NY 10019 T (212)378-0400 F (212)378-2160
|
|
|
