Our third story in a series on TV studio builds focuses on Pittsfield Community Television, which has three channels (public, educational and government access, in the Pittsfield, Dalton and Richmond, Massachusetts area. PCTV rebuilt the studios in City Hall, a building that dates to the 1920s.
PCTV Education Coordinator and Chief Engineer Shawn Serre tells RBR+TVBR after several months of planning, construction kicked-off last June and was completed in August. “Everything had to be carefully orchestrated because it’s not our building and we had to work around meetings they held” in the room PCTV was working in every day,” Serre told us in an interview, adding they sometimes had to shoot a few things using a single camera while multi-camera rooms were outfitted.
The crew worked in two meeting rooms that feed visual and audio material back to a single control room; workers first had to rip out all the 20-year-old standard definition gear and the analog infrastructure.
PCTV airs government meetings from City Hall — sometimes two at a time. One person is usually operating cameras that can pan, zoom and tilt, directing, operating audio and graphics as well as handling live feeds, he explained.
In the control room, they replaced the gear and had Marco Consoles build a custom production console. They use an audio automixer to help prioritize whoever’s speaking from the podium; it mutes the other mics and helps the operator focus on visual elements, explained Serre.
PCTV upgraded the PA system as well. The total budget for the City Hall project was about $120,000.
Some of the gear used in the build includes:
5 Panasonic AW-HE-130 cameras – NAB Booth C3607
4 Panasonic AW-HE-40 cameras – NAB Booth C3607
Panasonic AW-RP120 controller – NAB Booth C3607
Tightrope Media Systems – Cablecast automation and playout software – NAB Booth SL4228
Blackmagic Design ATEM 2 M/E and 1 ME Broadcast Studio 4K Video Switchers – NAB Booth SL217
Blackmagic Design-Smart Videohub Router – NAB Booth SL217
3 Shure SCM820 auto-mixers with Dante control – NAB Booth C2635
Electro-Voice PA speakers with ART amplifiers
Extron DVS605 Broadcast Video Scaler – NAB Booth SL11611
Apple Mac Mini Desktop Computers
Final Cut Pro editing software
