(June 5, 2009) Vinten Radamec announces it has supplied its state-of-the-art Fusion robotic camera operation system to Austin ABC affiliate KEYE-TV.
The station realized significant efficiencies by reducing the number of crewmembers necessary to produce its newscasts, allowing them to be assigned to different tasks. Additionally, the station now achieves more precision and repeatability in camera moves on a nightly basis.
KEYE installed a Vinten Radamec Fusion camera robotic system, including four Fusion FH100 Robotic/Manual heads. Three of the FH100s are mounted on FP145 Fusion Robotic Pedestals, which can be robotically moved across the studio floor. A fourth camera mounted on an FH100 head is used for weathercast green screen shots and does not require movement around the studio floor.
“The control console is very straightforward, very simple, and easy to learn,” said the station’s Director of Broadcast Operations and Engineering, Dusty Granberry. “I think having the various shots therewith an icon, where you actually see the shot that you’re going to ona touchscreen, make it very easy for operators to learn.”
Because KEYE is located in a college town, where student camera operators come relatively cheap, it’s all the more impressive that the station is amortizing the capital costs of the robotics through operating cost savings. But Granberry said the cost savings is just part of the robotics advantage.
“They’re always here,” he said of the cameras on their robotic platforms. “They come on time, they never get sick, and it’s made our life a lot easier.”
Granberry said the robotics have actually improved the uniformity of camera operation during the station’s news programs, especially for those hard to repeat signature newscast shots.
“Every news director has that very special zoom-in at the beginning of the show, or very special trucking shot that they really love, and it’s nice to be able to repeat it over and over again, every single night. That’s pretty impressive, and it improved the overall quality of the show.”
The ability of the Fusion system to precisely navigate to a location across the studio floor has been especially important for KEYE’s morning news program. “The morning show is more feature driven. We actually move two of the pedestals over to an interview set, 40 feet across the studio. And on the Friday late newscast, we do a sports- extra show where we move the pedestals to a location off the main news set.” He said the cameras navigate those moves day-in and day-out.
The Fusion FH100 head’s manual operation capability was a key sellingpoint to the Austin TV station. “We’re always changing our morning show up,” said Granberry. “We may be doing demonstration types of things, on a table top, when we would need to run a camera on manual control. Our experience so far is that the robotic operation is very flexible, and we haven’t had to operate manually yet.”
That manual operation capability was also a safety net for him. “There’s always some angst when you go from manual to robotic operation, so being able to operate cameras manually was a plus for me because I knew if we had had a problem, we could have put them in the manual mode and run them, if needed.”
For further information, please go to http://www.vintenradamec.com
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