Atlanta's WXIA-TV goes HD with Utah Scientific

WXIA-TV, an NBC affiliate and Gannet-owned station based in Atlanta, recently made the transition to HD with master control and routing switchers from Utah Scientific.
As part of its new system, the station has installed Utah Scientific's MC-2020 SD/HD master control switcher and a 256x256 UTAH-400 HD routing switcher, both designed to provide an easy upgrade path from analogue to SD and HD operations.
"I was very impressed with Utah Scientific's customer support and level of technical expertise," said Lenard Thomas, Chief Engineer at WXIA-TV. "We had less than four months to get this system up and running, and not only did Utah help us design the most efficient pathfinding system to fit our facility, their staff was always available to help us with any issues that came up during the installation."
WXIA's investment included new HD master control and routing switchers and a new automation system, video server, and signal converters. The company chose the UTAH-400 HD routing switcher for its ability to map out various feed formats coming through the facility. The UTAH-400 HD ensures that feeds of various formats and aspect ratios are automatically routed to the appropriate signal converters.
WXIA currently broadcasts an analogue, an SD, and an HD channel. The SD signal is devoted to NBC's Weather Plus - a digital weather channel. Along with the UTAH-400 and MC-2020 switchers, the station is using Harris automation, Omneon Spectrum servers, and a Sony news production switcher to manage its HD broadcasts.
The MC-2020 SD/HD master control switcher drives all the switching and routing functions through one keyboard-like surface within the station's master control facility. It features four keyers per channel, as well as audio board kits for each channel for use with both separate AES and embedded audio. The UTAH-400 HD is designed as a scalable matrix architecture that allows users to expand from 8x8 all the way up to 1152x1152, and it features redundant power supplies, crosspoint and controller cards.
Also included in the installation is Utah's SC-4, a powerful control system that can be used with any of the current or legacy Utah routing switchers while also providing interface capability to many third-party control and switching systems.
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