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 ll Design Engineers love a good challenge. And
that’s ex-actly what was presented when SplashMedia asked Rodney Mur-ray
to design and install a network stu-dio in a space the size of a garage.
But that was only the beginning. The facil-ity was on the ground floor
of a five story commercial/residential building and flanked on either
side by restau-rants. The existing space had to be gu-tted before new
construction could begin with just six months to the scheduled air
date.
Most people said it couldn’t be done. The position of Senior
Director of En-gineering for SplashMedia was acce-pted and the
responsibility for building the studio that is home to Traders
Television Network (TTV) - the first satellite television network
dedicated solely to online investors and traders.
Previous experience
in building a studio from the ground up was with Primedia Digital Video
where we built an 182,000 square-foot broadcast facility. By
comparison, this studio was hand built - very specialized, much like a
Lamborghini. SplashMedia was told that a studio could be built in a
Volkswagen bus and this statement was taken seriously. |
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The network launched on schedule, and currently
produces 11, one hour live programs daily that are broadcast Monday
through Friday on the DISH satellite network. Weekend programming
consists of re-broadcasting the weekday shows and some training
videos.
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Unique Design Driven by Cre-ative Thinking and
Technical Prowess |
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To accomplish
this seemingly uni-maginable feat, the rule book had to be thrown
out and Telemetrics was consulted to apply their expertise in
developing a camera robotics system and with Orad, to supply the
virtual studio system to fit in a space challenged environment. The
entire facility is about 4000 square feet and contains one control
room and three studios, the largest of which, Stu-dio A, is 22 x 20
feet. Because of the size limitations, the only possible and viable
solution was a 100% 3D multi camera virtual stu-dio from Orad and
utilizing a unique camera robotics system from Telemetrics.
At 22 x 20 feet, Studio A is very
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cutting edge – a unique work of art. The virtual
set is achi-eved with Blue- Set technology from Orad and a 180°
chroma wall which allows set changes with the push of a button.
Finding a tracking system that would interface with the Orad system
and have both horizontal and vertical capability in limited space
proved to be one of the biggest challenges. The Design Engi-neers
was familiar with Telemetrics’ Camera Trolley Systems but what
really needed was an ‘H-shaped’ conf-iguration that would allow the
camera to move back and forth, up and do-wn, and simultaneo-usly
back/ forth and up/down. When Telemetrics was contacted and
expla-ined what was needed, they immedi-ately offered a solution –
one they had applied many times
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C P-D-3A
Control Panel |
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