Firestone Communications chooses Zandar

Firestone Communications, based in Texas, has joined the expansive broadcast client base of Zandar Technologies, a leading innovator in the design and development of high resolution image processing and control systems.
Firestone installed two 1RU DX MultiViewers in a completely new live production control room that replaced the use of a rented sports production vehicle. Specification and supply of the Zandar units were through local supplier and integrator, Burst Communications, Inc, and Bock Associates, Inc., Zandar's sales representative in the North Texas area.
Firestone Communications is the owner and operator of ¡SORPRESA! - America's first Hispanic Children's television network. Firestone Communications also operates a state-of-the-art, fully digital, Network Operation Center which offers automated traffic systems, C-Band digital uplink, multiple downlink antennas, fibre POP access on the Westar network, live programme switching and digital video servers.
"When we brought our live production operation in-house, we wanted to display all our video feeds on plasma monitors instead of having racks of individual CRT monitors that take up much more space, use large amounts of power, emit heat and require high maintenance," explained Will Raymond, Systems Engineer at Firestone Communications. "The new live production control room sits alongside our 24/7 Network Operations Center, studios for live or taped programmes, editing suites, an audio suite and motion graphics suites."
In the main control room composite and SDI video signals are fed into the two Zandar 1RU DX8 MultiViewers and images are displayed across two 42-inch plasma screens with a duplicate 42-inch plasma display situated in the audio suite.
The control room's left screen (which is duplicated in the audio suite) is configured using the DX MultiViewer to show the director's main switcher sources which include four studio cameras across the bottom of the screen and across the top are the switcher's ME program outputs as well as the EVS LSM2-cam DVR playback device channels RED and BLUE. The other plasma monitor shows a large image for program on the right, and then on the left is the clip player, a VTR, off-air return signal and teleprompter feed.
(GB)