Broadcast Engineering Sites

The purpose of this page is to offer a list of manufacturers, technology groups, station home pages, and regulatory pages of interest to the broadcast engineering professional. Additions to this list are always welcome; please submit them to the email address at the bottom of this page.

Updated 10-10-2005 Lots of links changes!

NEW!

One thing I have noticed over the years is that Broadcast Engineers like to tell stories! Do you have an interesting broadcast engineering story? Would you like to share it with other Broadcast Engineers? If so, submit the story to me and I will post it here! Please note in the submission that it is for this feature. HAPPY WRITING!

DTV and HDTV pictures!

Coming soon! Pictures of KNPB's digital conversion.

Here are some pictures from some state-of-the-art facilities I have had the privelige to visit recently. Enjoy! [DTV express truck.]

This is the DTV express truck, put together as a joint venture between PBS, Harris and Philips Broadcast. It was used as a training and demonstration tool, and toured the country for about 18 months. Although the truck is no longer on the road, training seminars are still being offered based on the material developed for the road trip. The next session will be just before the 2001 NAB convention. It is VERY WELL WORTH the nominal cost!!

[DTV express truck studio racks.]

This is the studio electronics section of the DTV express truck. It's all here: Routing switcher, master control switcher, MPEG compression and multiplexing, format converters, sync and test equipment. Various HDTV and SDTV monitors are visible. On the far left are two D-5 VTRs. One is set up for SDTV, the other for HDTV. 'Advertisements' for the various equipment manufacturers scroll through the LED message panels at the top of each rack.

[DTV express truck RF racks.]

This is the transmission racks of the DTV express truck. On the left top are two Harris ATSC exciters. A smalll RF amplifier sits below the exciters. The devices in the bottom of the left rack are homebrew variable power combiners to simulate various transmission impairments. If anything on this truck is worth seeing, the transmission impairment demonstration is! The truck also contains a kilometer of coax to simulate a lossy STL path!

The device in the center of the middle rack is a Tektronix 8-VSB analyzer. This (Or something like it) is an absolute 'must-have' piece of test equipment! The display is showing the distinctive 8-VSB 'eye' pattern. Below the analyzer is a Zenith prototype set-top converter box.

The right-hand rack contains more-or-less conventional terminal and test equipment.

[High definition remote truck exterior.]

Here are some pictures from the new and spectacular HD-1 remote production truck. Built by Sony at a cost of about $9 million, it is a technological tour-de-force! It was in our area to cover a Buffalo Bills game during December, 1998. It normally lives at Madison Square Gardens in New York City. Note the expand-o-side, and the wiring access doors. Unfortunately, the front of the truck got cut off in this photo. There are two more wiring access doors off the left edge of the picture. The very front of the truck, about 15 feet off the left edge of the picture, carries two large air conditioning units to cool the truck.

[[High definition remote truck monitor wall.]

This is a view of the monitor wall in the production area. The two HD monitors in the middle are actually flat panel plasma displays.

[High definition remote truck VTR area.]

This is the HD truck's videotape area. Most of the VTR's in use are Sony HDCAM machines, and they are all equipped with slow motion controls.

[High definition remote truck video shading area.]

This is the video shading area. The truck contains a variety of HDTV cameras, all Sony of course! The HDTV picture monitor here is the best one on the truck, for critical video evaluation.

[High definition remote truck tech area.]

This is part of the HD truck's technical area. It contains all the switcher mainframes, distribution amplifiers, sync generators, patch panels, etc. Although this area looks very conventional, much of the gear is actually very exotic for the extremely wide bandwidths required by digital HDTV.

Broadcast Engineering Sites

Organizations

Equipment vendors