Alright, so I have been a little lax in updating this blog. But as my last post described, there has been much to distract me from finishing it. Now, 9 months after that busy day, I have finally gathered new pictures to post the finale of this crazy transformation from 1980's to...semi-current times!
As you can see in the pics below and by the title of this post, STUDIO B IS FINISHED! Well, for all intent and purposes it is. With something like this, things tend to be found here and there that need to be tweaked from time to time. More on that later...
The control room has been put back together with all the gear buttoned up. Every piece of gear has been installed and calibrated with each other. And over the last two semesters, the studio has been used many times over by various productions that happen within the studio walls.
If you notice, there is one slight difference in the control room from previous posts. The addition of the Yamaha audio mixer. Now if anyone was guessing that one piece might fail before any other, everyone would have put their money on the Ramsa console. The old piece of equipment was showing its age and would not mix audio very well in practice. Too many pots and faders had scummed to dust and wear to the point that some channels wouldn't even function any more. Well after 6 months of use in the new studio, the board had to be retired (and for good this time). It was replaced with a Yamaha MG32/14FX analog mixer. This new board brings twice the amount of inputs, doing away with repatching. ...and all the people rejoiced...YAY!
Also, you may notice the beautiful news set that was constructed over a year ago. This set, built and co-designed by Dustin Cunningham (pictured in one of the pics), was built to replace the old blue stripped set that was constructed many years ago. All who have seen the nightly news cast have raved over it's beauty. You can watch the news cast live M-F at 6:30pm CST.
Well, it has been a crazy transformation that this studio has undergone and one that was welcomed by all. I hope to be back with more crazy transformations that I get to partake in later down the road.
If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to email us at comments@mtsutv.org
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Time to Pause...
Hello,
Sorry for not updating this blog recently. It has been a few weeks since I last updated, but for good reasons. Pictured above is my little time consumer, the very one that has been taking up all my time for the last few weeks. Little Natalie has graced my life with her presence and I couldn't be happier. This little bundle of joy, however, has been keeping me from the Studio and from being your inside source on all things happening.
Don't worry, work is still being made on finishing up the Studio. As of last visit, strides were being made to finish up all the different parts that still needed to be buttoned up. Decks are being installed in the video racks, the audio equipment is being fully wired and tested, and as you can see, big things have happened with the desk and monitor wall.
Below you will see that the desk has been finished and the equipment installed, including the switcher control desk. Also, you can see that the monitors have been programmed and the layouts have been saved. The beauty of the Avitech system is that these layouts can be customized to any configuration that the producer/director needs. This comes in handy when you have many different producers, directors, and even productions that happen in the same studio, allowing for a great versatility in studio equipment.
Well, when I can get back to the studio, I will update all the changes that have been made since I have been gone.
Till then...
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Day 14 - Begin of Finishing work
I know it may sound like we are on the last leg of the transformation of StudioB, but there are many things that still have to be done.
Today was another day of finishing up projects that need to be completed in the control room. The firs major project was to wire up the monitor wall multiplexers. The new shipment of BNC ends came in and work was quickly underway. Before you know it, 24 new BNC cables were finished. It seems like this will truly finish the monitor wall in all its beautiful 1080p High Definition goodness... Of course, work still needs to be done to program the placement of each of the video boxes which will be done later.
Also finished today was the running of reference sync lines. In the picture below, you will see the orange video lines. These phosphorescent orange cables carry the black burst signal that will sync all the pieces of equipment to the same frequency in order for them all to work correctly. With these ran, one last major step is finished to get the system up and running. With the exception of a few loose video lines needing to be ran, the video/tape rack can now be pushed back against the wall and never touched again...Hello dust collection...
The most notable accomplishment done is the desk. After a few coats of stain and lacqure, the desktop is finished. Along with the finish being applied, the intercom stations have been installed and mounted. You may notice in the pictures below that another desk has been built and installed. This is the teleprompter station. The desk also rounds out the back wall making seem less bare than it needs to be.
And, if you thought that I was stuck in the studio without ever seeing the sun (since all my pictures are without natural sunlight), I added a nice picture of the Tennessean sun. Now I must get inside before I turn to dust ... Into the night...
Today was another day of finishing up projects that need to be completed in the control room. The firs major project was to wire up the monitor wall multiplexers. The new shipment of BNC ends came in and work was quickly underway. Before you know it, 24 new BNC cables were finished. It seems like this will truly finish the monitor wall in all its beautiful 1080p High Definition goodness... Of course, work still needs to be done to program the placement of each of the video boxes which will be done later.
Also finished today was the running of reference sync lines. In the picture below, you will see the orange video lines. These phosphorescent orange cables carry the black burst signal that will sync all the pieces of equipment to the same frequency in order for them all to work correctly. With these ran, one last major step is finished to get the system up and running. With the exception of a few loose video lines needing to be ran, the video/tape rack can now be pushed back against the wall and never touched again...Hello dust collection...
The most notable accomplishment done is the desk. After a few coats of stain and lacqure, the desktop is finished. Along with the finish being applied, the intercom stations have been installed and mounted. You may notice in the pictures below that another desk has been built and installed. This is the teleprompter station. The desk also rounds out the back wall making seem less bare than it needs to be.
And, if you thought that I was stuck in the studio without ever seeing the sun (since all my pictures are without natural sunlight), I added a nice picture of the Tennessean sun. Now I must get inside before I turn to dust ... Into the night...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Day 13 - Monitor wall greatness
Hello again.
Time to update with a great announcement...
THE MONITOR WALL IS FINISHED...mostly...
With the exception of the video lines running to the Avitech boxes, the monitor wall is finished. Today was a day of running lines, installing boxes, and zip tiering everything. To start the day off right, we had a big box arrive at our door steps from Avitech. Inside were the brand new Avitech Rainier multiviewer boxes that will be powering the two 42" LCD's. After a bit of manual reading, we decided to throw away the book and slap the boxes in as fast as we could to see the beautiful display of video (ok, so we did take our time and do it correctly...). The only thing left to finish the wall is to crimp on the final 24 BNC ends to the tie lines.
Besides the countless hours spent basking in the glory of the one truly great upgrade of the studio, many other small things were finished up today. Lines were ran for all the datacom that will be in the control room. This includes the lines for gigabit ethernet and phone lines to the desk and racks. Also, lines running from the switcher, dve, and still store were also ran to the desk for the control panels. To finish the day off right, the first coat of stain was applied to the desk top. After a few more coats of stain and more coats of lacquer, the desk will be ready for final installation.
Also pictured below is the JVC hd-250 that was put in last semester when one of the old sony cameras failed. Seeing as how they were too old to fix, a replacement was purchased. The picture shows the camera hooked up for testing the video system to make sure all the signal flow paths were working.
Well that is all for now. I now go to stare at the beautiful pictures that are being crated in the studio, and its only the monitor wall. Wait till fall programming starts...
Time to update with a great announcement...
THE MONITOR WALL IS FINISHED...mostly...
With the exception of the video lines running to the Avitech boxes, the monitor wall is finished. Today was a day of running lines, installing boxes, and zip tiering everything. To start the day off right, we had a big box arrive at our door steps from Avitech. Inside were the brand new Avitech Rainier multiviewer boxes that will be powering the two 42" LCD's. After a bit of manual reading, we decided to throw away the book and slap the boxes in as fast as we could to see the beautiful display of video (ok, so we did take our time and do it correctly...). The only thing left to finish the wall is to crimp on the final 24 BNC ends to the tie lines.
Besides the countless hours spent basking in the glory of the one truly great upgrade of the studio, many other small things were finished up today. Lines were ran for all the datacom that will be in the control room. This includes the lines for gigabit ethernet and phone lines to the desk and racks. Also, lines running from the switcher, dve, and still store were also ran to the desk for the control panels. To finish the day off right, the first coat of stain was applied to the desk top. After a few more coats of stain and more coats of lacquer, the desk will be ready for final installation.
Also pictured below is the JVC hd-250 that was put in last semester when one of the old sony cameras failed. Seeing as how they were too old to fix, a replacement was purchased. The picture shows the camera hooked up for testing the video system to make sure all the signal flow paths were working.
Well that is all for now. I now go to stare at the beautiful pictures that are being crated in the studio, and its only the monitor wall. Wait till fall programming starts...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Rebuild, Mini Update...
Hello again.
I thought I would give a mini update for those of you who check this daily. One new development happened today that is pretty exciting and a signal to the end of the rebuild.
We Have Fiber!!
No, we haven't been chowing down on bran muffins. Today was the first day that Studio B has broadcasted video in over three months. Shown in the picture above is the two fiber converter boxes that connect up to Mass Comm and our master control. Using two fiber optic links, we transmit two video lines and a stereo audio line over 500 ft to the Mass Comm building into our master control room where we hook into the Comcast uplink. Though, we did not actually broadcast anything to the outside world, there was video that was sent to the master control station. We currently only have video running to the converter boxes at the moment, so there will not be any programming being played out from the studio yet, but hopefully soon the station will be fully operational again.
Check back for more updates, including the arrival of some very cool pieces of equipment...
Friday, June 13, 2008
Day 12 - Monitor wall, take 2
Hello all
Surprise, I am throwing in a bonus post since my posting schedule has apparently moved to a once a week posting. However, I could not just keep this one to myself till next week.
If you hadn't noticed, we have the monitor wall finished again (it went quicker this time for some reason ;-) ). Pictured above are the two 47" Philips LCD HDTVs that are the core of the monitor wall. 
As I stated before, these will hold 24 video inputs that can be configured in any way possible. The desktop has been put in for layout and final adjustment, though it has not been attached to the supports yet. In the picture to the right, you can see that we have added the wood for the intercom station. It will be built into the desktop and have a 45 degree tilt to it.Though it may seem like there is little room left for the director, there is actually quite a bit of room in front of the station, the same if not more than what it was previously with the old desk. Also you have the space on top of the station that can also be used as desktop space.
As I stated before, these will hold 24 video inputs that can be configured in any way possible. The desktop has been put in for layout and final adjustment, though it has not been attached to the supports yet. In the picture to the right, you can see that we have added the wood for the intercom station. It will be built into the desktop and have a 45 degree tilt to it.Though it may seem like there is little room left for the director, there is actually quite a bit of room in front of the station, the same if not more than what it was previously with the old desk. Also you have the space on top of the station that can also be used as desktop space.To the right of the monitors, you can see the opening for the GVG 200 switcher control surface. The rest of the layout will include space for the DVE and still store controls to the right of the switcher, Director and Producer spaces in front of the monitors, and space for the CG operator to the left of the monitors.
Well, hopefully that can sustain everyone's appetite until next week...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Day 11 - More Audio
Hello again,
It looks like I am moving towards a one day a week posting schedule. The problem is that with audio cables, so much work is put into running one line that the entire process takes a good amount of time.
Speaking of the process, I guess I should go through that for anyone who would like to know. Unlike video cables, which only require a BNC end to be crimped onto the cable, audio cables require much more intensive work to be done. Starting at the patch panels, each line must be stripped, heat shrink tubing added, dressed with zip ties, and punched down. This is required in order to make a clean looking rack, of course. As you can see in the pictures below, the outcome is very clean looking. Then to the DA side of things, each line going to and coming from the audio DAs must be attached to small screw terminals. These require tedious and tiering work to be done to attach all the leads. And on the device side of things, each cable end must be soldered onto the cable. Most of the time, each connector requires two or three leads to be soldered. On top of all this, you must multiply every stereo line by two in order to run the left and right channels. As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done...
At this point, a majority of line coming into the audio patch panels have been run. All the inputs to and from the tape decks, router, audio board, and studio patch panels have been ran and punched-down at the patch panels. Whats left is running outputs from the audio DAs to the patch panels, running lines to and from each of the processing boxes, and COMM lines. Studio patch panel 1 (located behind the studio door) has been completed along with a coat of black paint to allow it to blend in better than the beige color it was previously. Work began on Studio panel 2 (located behind the set on the opposite wall from panel 1) by drilling the holes for the panel connectors and also giving it a coat of black paint.
Also, an exciting event happened for us as well. We two of the four components of the new monitor wall. As you can see in the pics below, we received the two 47" Philips LCD HDTVs that will be the main visible component of the monitor wall. On these two monitors, 24 video displays will be multiplexed using two Avitech 12 input boxes. Those will be coming within the next few weeks.
And one more side note...As always, here at MTTV, we strive to keep true to our roots. As any past member can tell you, we love using antiquated technology (considering we had a 3/4" tape deck and a Cart player still). As you can see below, the VHS deck has been wired and is fully operational.
Till next time...
It looks like I am moving towards a one day a week posting schedule. The problem is that with audio cables, so much work is put into running one line that the entire process takes a good amount of time.
Speaking of the process, I guess I should go through that for anyone who would like to know. Unlike video cables, which only require a BNC end to be crimped onto the cable, audio cables require much more intensive work to be done. Starting at the patch panels, each line must be stripped, heat shrink tubing added, dressed with zip ties, and punched down. This is required in order to make a clean looking rack, of course. As you can see in the pictures below, the outcome is very clean looking. Then to the DA side of things, each line going to and coming from the audio DAs must be attached to small screw terminals. These require tedious and tiering work to be done to attach all the leads. And on the device side of things, each cable end must be soldered onto the cable. Most of the time, each connector requires two or three leads to be soldered. On top of all this, you must multiply every stereo line by two in order to run the left and right channels. As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done...
At this point, a majority of line coming into the audio patch panels have been run. All the inputs to and from the tape decks, router, audio board, and studio patch panels have been ran and punched-down at the patch panels. Whats left is running outputs from the audio DAs to the patch panels, running lines to and from each of the processing boxes, and COMM lines. Studio patch panel 1 (located behind the studio door) has been completed along with a coat of black paint to allow it to blend in better than the beige color it was previously. Work began on Studio panel 2 (located behind the set on the opposite wall from panel 1) by drilling the holes for the panel connectors and also giving it a coat of black paint.
Also, an exciting event happened for us as well. We two of the four components of the new monitor wall. As you can see in the pics below, we received the two 47" Philips LCD HDTVs that will be the main visible component of the monitor wall. On these two monitors, 24 video displays will be multiplexed using two Avitech 12 input boxes. Those will be coming within the next few weeks.
And one more side note...As always, here at MTTV, we strive to keep true to our roots. As any past member can tell you, we love using antiquated technology (considering we had a 3/4" tape deck and a Cart player still). As you can see below, the VHS deck has been wired and is fully operational.
Till next time...
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