City Of Durham Takes First Step Toward HD Production With Broadcast Pix

Broadcast Pix recently announced the City of Durham, N.C., has upgraded to a Granite 1000 integrated production switcher for coverage of its bi-monthly city council and monthly planning commission meetings. Vivian Cruz-O’Doherty, government television manager in the city’s Office of Public Affairs, said the new switcher is Durham’s first step toward upgrading its meeting coverage to HD production.

The city council chamber is equipped with five Panasonic SD cameras, along with a document camera and PC input for sharing PowerPoint presentations. Cruz-O’Doherty hopes to replace the aging cameras with HD models before the end of 2018 – and when the new cameras are installed, she plans to control them through the Granite. “We are definitely planning for the future,” she said.

ClarkPowell, an integrator with offices in Raleigh, N.C., installed the new Granite in late January in time for the Feb. 6 Durham City Council meeting. Housed in a small control room in City Hall, along with cable headend equipment and a dedicated AC system, the Granite replaced a Broadcast Pix Slate that had been in use for almost 10 years.

Live meetings air locally on Spectrum cable and AT&T U-verse channels, and are replayed on both channels. Meetings are also available on demand on the station’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/cityofdurhamnc).

The city’s video production includes a large amount of graphics, particularly lower-thirds for identifying speakers and agenda items. Cruz-O’Doherty said the city was able to export its existing graphics from the older system, which saved the team from having to recreate them.

For Cruz-O’Doherty, it was an easy choice to stay with Broadcast Pix. “It’s a great product. We wouldn’t be able to put those meetings out without the Broadcast Pix,” she said. “It’s reliable, it can do everything we want and more, and we’ve had really good support from ClarkPowell and Broadcast Pix.”