Becoming Digital: The Facility Migration into Digital and Multichannel Broadcast Television Operations

The ‘Transition to Digital’ affects every facet of the turn of the millennium television operating facility. Even the most creative department manager or broadcast executive will be challenged by the changes that digital technologies will require. News, transmission, master control, production, sales, traffic, studios (with related control rooms) all will be affected in terms of their operational and staffing needs. Added to this is the need to consider, in the strategic planning process, business opportunities to generate added revenue streams. Networks, group-owners and local stations alike face a brave new world. More than ever, ‘branding’ and marketing must team up with engineering and MIS/IT operations to achieve the excellence that will be expected. — ‘Transition to Digital’ will address the process of evaluating and selecting the technologies, defining their impact on the operations, and planning for the facility changes necessary to accommodate the new technologies. This paper will also discuss the following issues: analog to digital transition; interface to progressive; SDTV to HDTV; 4:3 to 16:9 aspect ratio; and the multitude of equipment alternatives and technical decisions, and their impact on operational infrastructure requirements. — In addition to the changes in engineering, new challenges in broadcast facility architecture are equally significant. New studio cavity formulas for 16:9, more advanced lighting angle calculations and grid relationships are all changing.

Published

1999-07

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M001217

ISBN

978-1-61482-948-5