WBOC-DT
In May 2008, WBOC-DT was the first in its market—and the first in the state of Maryland—to broadcast its local newscasts in HD. WBOC turned to The Systems Group to upgrade an existing analog plant to an all-digital infrastructure as cheaply as possible and make sure it’s future-proof and include redundancy for reliable 24/7 operation.
To house the new facilities, a new 11,00 sq ft. building was constructed. Fiber-optic cabling tie lines between the old part of building and the new facilities help move signals between master control and the new production facilities.
Previously, they used a collection of analog routers and tape-based DVCPro edit systems and cameras, and other obsolete production equipment. The new building includes a Thomson Grass Valley Ignite system (robotic cameras), a rotating anchor desk/stage, two multichannel Omneon servers, dozens of Evertz modular boards and Evertz MVP multi-view software system for its monitor wall in the control room. This control room also features two Panasonic tape decks that are controlled by the Ignite system. In the case of breaking news, the crew inserts a tape and the footage is played directly out of the Ignite system to air. Upconversion is performed with an Evertz card linked to the output of the VTRs.
In the new “NewsPlex” studio there are four Thomson Grass Valley Ignite robotic cameras, a Hitachi box-style camera on a jib arm and another Hitachi camera mounted in the ceiling. There’s also a handheld camera (Panasonic) on a tripod that’s used to shoot around the studio. In the field, the station maintains 15 ENG DVCPro cameras. The resulting SD images are upconverted with Evertz modular gear. Budgets permitting, the tape-based cameras will be replaced with Sony XDCAM HD camcorders next year.
After years of working with legacy equipment in various stages of functionality (and age), the new building gave WBOC a chance to start from scratch and build a 21st century facility that gets news to air faster and eliminates many manual and redundant processes.