PBS technology team to visit KUAC

Submitted by Ann Dowdy
Phone: (907) 474-1890
08/18/04

A PBS technology team will visit KUAC this Friday, Aug. 20, in preparation for the new digital TV control room that will be installed next spring. KUAC will be one of the first of six stations in the nation to install the PBS TV digital control room of the future.

In February 2004, KUAC received a grant for $703,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service program. The funds are to be used to purchase digital television translators for the four communities that KUAC currently serves via an air feed (Delta Junction, Healy, Nenana, and Manley Hot Springs). Additionally, the funds were to help purchase a digital media server and automation system to store and playback DTV content on synchronized servers in Fairbanks and Juneau to create the Digital Alaska One public television service.

In late spring, KUAC received a grant for $724,380 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s digital distribution fund in order to participate in the PBS ACE Project. The ACE is a digital television control room for the future, capable of creating multiple streams for broadcast over a digital transmitter or distribution to cable and satellite systems. PBS created the ACE project as an integrated solution for stations who could benefit from a common digital control room solution. The ACE will be a computer that can record and playback multiple video streams at the same time, automation software to tell the computer what to do and when to do it, and monitoring equipment to check the output and inform operators and engineers when errors are about to occur.

The ACE will replace nearly all of KUACs analog video equipment, creating an efficient system of video record and play out using the latest broadcast technology. ACE will record multiple, concurrent programs from any number of sources including the PBS satellite as well as the KUAC studios. The ACE will then be able to play those programs back in any order, creating the Alaska One PBS service that KUAC viewers already enjoy as well as a high definition PBS channel for Alaska, UATV, and other video services as well. The ACE contains numerous provisions for redundancy, allowing easy "workarounds" until failing equipment or processes can be repaired.

When completed, the ACE will help create digital TV streams in Juneau as well, by linking video servers at KUAC and KTOO under one common scheduling and automation system.

"A multi-channel video control facility is imperative in the new digital world" said Greg Petrowich, General Manager and CEO of KUAC. "Viewers in Alaska depend on KUAC and the University of Alaska to provide access to programming that is both entertaining and educational. With this new digital TV control facility, we will be able to make so much more programming available to our viewers over a digital transmitter that can broadcast as many as four channels at the same time."

In 2004-2005, the ACE project will be implemented other PBS facilities such as Iowa Public Television, Wisconsin Public Television, New Hampshire Public Television and Schenectady, New York. KUAC is scheduled to be the fifth ACE installation by PBS system integrators in May/June 2005.

Serving Interior Alaska, KUAC 89.9 FM-TV 9 Alaska One/KUAC-DT 24, public radio and public television, is a multiple-media organization with a mission to provide quality noncommercial programming and services that enlighten, inspire, educate and entertain. KUAC is licensed to the University of Alaska.

Contact: Ann Dowdy (907) 474-1890 or fnajd@uaf.edu.