Our station is in the process of overhauling everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — to be ready for the federally-mandated switch to high definition. Master Control, the folks responsible for piping all the feeds (network, our news program, satellite, etc.) just finished their big switch with a few hiccups, and now it’s the control room’s turn.
As I’ve noted before, the control room is “where the magic happens”, so to speak. Within its dry, well-ventilated walls, you have the main switcher, the producer’s and director’s stations, graphics, prompter, and audio.
Since all of this stuff is dated, it all had to go. Well, audio got to stay, since most of the stuff in the booth doesn’t need to be updated on the same timeline. So, the audio operator gets to stare out into a darkened, near-Orwellian room for the duration of the broadcast.
If I were to picture Room 101 at Miniluv, this is pretty darn close:
Okay, the above setup was engineering’s idea of a joke, I think. Of course, they pulled an all-night getting all of the stuff out and relocated down the hall so we could still put on a show, so maybe the humor is a little lost on me.
Actually, there is a small clarification depending upon the upgrade date you’re referring to. Most stations are required to broadcast a digital signal in February, not High Def. I would imagine many stations are skipping the digital infrastructure and going straight to high def because it is more feasible in the long run leaving the formats they aquire in the field alone, upconverting them somewhere in their workflow.
I don’t mean to be a geek, it’s just that we just went through the whole process, not going down one day and not having one burp that I can remember when putting all our high def stuff online.