Ron Diotte; Chief Engineer
KSTW Channel 11; www.kstw.com

With an impending move to a new facility back in July 2001, it was a natural time for KSTW Channel 11 to consider replacing its antiquated analog equipment. Seattle’s premiere entertainment TV channel equally faced the logistical nightmare of moving from a 40,000 to a 21,000 square feet facility. The solution was clear: KSTW Channel 11 needed to upgrade its two on-site stages and unwieldy analog control rooms with a compact, state-of-the-art digital facility.

New Streamlined Workflow
The new facility currently boasts four TARGA 3000s and a Pro Tools suite. Still KSTW’s Chief Engineer, Ron Diotte, saw that the promotional and production workflow was changing, requiring a more streamlined process. Ron decided to leverage the power of his new digital equipment with storage area networking through Seattle-based Driveline Network, one of the largest professional video, graphics, audio, and SAN providers on the West Coast.

"We wanted all of our editors to be able to walk into any suite that was available at the time and be able to work instantly, by having access to all of their stored files and a common, working knowledge of the equipment,” says Diotte. "Our goal is to virtually eliminate audio and video tape; to work from a centralized area of storage which allows for simultaneous users and distribution of files,” he adds.

While three TARGA 3000s are located in separate non-linear suites, the fourth TARGA 3000 is in the master control room. The latter serves as a go between for ingest to the main on air playback servers and the non-linear suites. The system takes finished material and puts it in the transfer drive where the material is sent to sets of on-air playback servers. The on-air operators use the TARGA 3000 to do simple editing such as network tags, leaving the more creative editing to the TARGA 3000s located in the non-linear suites.

Reduced Rendering Times
The three TARGA 3000s in the non-linear suites have significantly sped up the editing process. A trainer from Pinnacle Systems visited KSTW to show Diotte and his colleagues how to use TARGA 3000 to reduce rendering and do layering in one pass. "It now takes a lot less to time to edit spots. This has greatly reduced our reliance on video tape,” states Diotte.

All-Inclusive Editing
TARGA 3000 enables KSTW’s editors to complete an entire project, involving special effects, graphics, and titling. TARGA 3000’s comprehensive editing capabilities is a new concept to the editors at KSTW. "It has taken some time for them to understand that they can do everything in one place with the TARGA 3000,” says Diotte enthusiastically.

Key Purchase Factors
Before choosing TARGA 3000, Ron looked at other systems – until Driveline Network showed him the new TARGA 3000. The fact that TARGA 3000 works with Adobe and runs on a Windows NT platform was key. It was important for both his graphics artists and editors to feel comfortable with the system and he knew that they were both familiar with Adobe Premiere and an NT based platform.

Equally important to Diotte, was the good reputation of Pinnacle Systems and Adobe. By this alone, he knew that the products were future-proof, making it easy to obtain needed upgrades. "We wanted off-the-shelf migration of physical engine and software, such as enhancements for HD, compression, formats, and different software upgrades,” says Ron.

To seal the deal, TARGA 3000 proved more economical than comparable systems. "I was looking at full blown systems with audio,” says Diotte. ȁOur investment in the TARGA 3000 saved us 40 percent compared to what we would have paid had we bought another system.”

Endless Possibilities
Ron now plans to use the TARGA 3000 to do 16 x 9, with uncompressed and 5.1 surround-sound. "With the TARGA 3000 and our new storage area network from Driveline Network, the possibilities for practically render-free editing and seamless integration are endless!” summarizes Ron.