CEI Delivers Studios, Control Rooms, Editing Rooms, and Post Production Areas To Support GW's Media Journalism Curricula, Distance Learning, and Live Broadcast Events
Washington, DC -- July 19, 2001 Communications Engineering, Inc., a design, engineering, and integration project services company, worked closely with The George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA) to design and build state-of-the-art broadcast and communications capabilities that are integral to GW's new 142,000 square foot MPA building. The technical facilities and classrooms situated in a prime downtown Washington, D.C. location, include a 258-seat auditorium, 80-seat multimedia teleconference facility, and will deliver GWU's world-class academic coursework, which addresses today's expanding and evolving journalism and media environment.
Michael Freedman, GW Vice President for Communications and an SMPA professorial lecturer, articulates, "Our academic focus is to blend subject theory with its practical application and the CEI-built facility really delivers by surrounding our students with the latest tools, techniques and capabilities. Our SMPA facility brings a compelling cache of capabilities to the classroom and teaching function but is also attractive to outside clients, including the broadcast networks."
Larry Brody, President and CEO of CEI, explains, "The design challenge for the GW facility was to take the latest digital broadcast technology solutions and meld them into a flexible, instructional platform for teaching and communication activities. Now the students, faculty, and instructors utilize digital tools in a superior learning environment comparable to today's most up-to-date broadcast television facilities."
Integrated communications links between GWU campus buildings and locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area connect SMPA faculty, students, classrooms, and other broadcast spaces to support GW's academic mission and live broadcast events as well as to provide media production and broadcast services to outside clients.
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Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Grows Its Broadcast Engineering and Integration Management Team
Bill Beckner and Joe Strobel Bring Engineering Experience and Talent to CEI's Broadcast Systems Business
Washington, DC -- June 15, 2001 Communications Engineering, Inc, a design, engineering, and integration project services company, has added two industry savvy managers to its engineering and integration teams.
John Wesley Nash, CEI Executive Vice President announced, "We are very pleased to add the expertise and talents of Bill and Joe to the CEI technical staff. Their broadcast operations experience and real-world technical proficiency is critical to the research, development, and implementation of innovative solutions in today's complex systems environment."
Bill Beckner, CEI Integration Manager, joins CEI after serving as Director of Engineering at Gateway Communications, Inc., a television station group. Mr. Beckner will manage CEI's project integration efforts after more than 30 years of broadcast engineering and technical operations management at WUSA-TV Washington DC, Gannett Radio & TV News Bureau, KPNX-TV Phoenix AZ., and KIVA Yuma AZ. His previous responsibilities involved the day-to-day operational efficiency of a 7/24 news operation, development of the station's technical direction, and engineering management of the technical staff. He is past president of WEBE (Washington DC Executive Broadcast Engineers) and is a member of SMPTE and SBE.
Joe Strobel, CEI Project Manager, joins CEI after serving as Vice President at Contract Video Specialists, Inc., a Washington DC area Broadcast and A/V integration firm. Mr. Strobel's technical background and expertise involves over 15 years of integrated television and radio design solutions tailored for commercial and government clients. His past broadcast experience also includes the University of Maryland Department of Radio, Television, & Film where he managed the production, post production, and maintenance operations.
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Fox Sports Net (FSN) Scales Up By Growing Its Automated, Multi-Channel Origination and On-Air Facility in Texas
Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Designs, Engineers, and Integrates FSN's New Technical Operations Center
Houston, Texas -- May 4, 2001 Fox Sports Net's expanding origination capabilities have been greatly expanded by its recent technical enhancements, especially the design and installation of 21 multichannel control rooms, each with their own Grass Valley Group M-2100 switcher. FSN's extensive sports programming, with an unpredictable and changing mix of live and pre-recorded events has shaped the technical design and modifications at the refashioned Houston facility. FSN's plant is arranged into separate clusters of control rooms enabling each individual room to originate liveprogramming or alternatively operate as a multichannel master control room managing up to 4 channels.
John Honeycutt, Senior Vice President, Broadcast Operations, Fox Cable Networks, explains, "CEI is helping Fox Sports Net to scale into a larger, more versatile origination platform for our server-based and live programming services. The successful collaboration helped us achieve our immediate origination and on-air requirements and prepares FSN for the future. We transmit 23 channels today but it won't be long before we consider growth to 30+ channels."
David Giblin, CEI Vice President and General Manager, comments, "Fox Sports Net required a flexible digital platform for the rigorous demands of live sports programming and a scalable means to incorporate additional channels in the years ahead. A current broadcast industry maxim advocates the need to do more, at higher quality, with the same staff. This underscores the Fox design requirement which was to develop the room layout, technical systems, network-ing, and automation into a completely adaptable, more productive environment."
Sophisticated signal monitoring and alarm systems assist master control personnel to quickly assess operational performance while managing multiple channels and events. Besides the distribution of national sports programming and origination services, Fox Sports Net also leverages the programming of its national and international regional sport channel partners, which require individual market branding before channel transmission. Logos, interstitials, regionalized news, and other produced material are stored and transmitted utilizing a redundant array of automation and server systems.
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Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Transitions CNN Washington DC Facility with Philips Venus 2001 Routing System
Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Designs, Engineers, and Integrates CNN's Digital Television (DTV) Upgrade With HDTV ready supporting infrastructure
Washington, D.C. -- April 10, 2001 CNN's Washington D.C. television operation has begun a multiyear facility overhaul with the installation of a serial digital (SDI) routing system. The comprehensive infrastructure upgrade is the start of CNN Washington's digital television (DTV) enhancements planned to be phased-in over the next few years. CEI's turnkey effort will include A/D & D/A video conversion systems, test and measurement solutions, and embedded audio conversion equipment.
Tu H. Vu, CNN Washington Director of Engineering, states, "CNN is working closely with the CEI team to establish a new digital core to support our Washington DC television operations. Our extensive analog plant, including studios, control rooms, and editing rooms, will be integrated with the new digital routing infrastructure. The new digital backbone will immediately improve the signal quality of CNN's broadcasts and also support our future evolution to SDTV and HDTV programming."
John Wesley Nash, CEI Executive Vice President and C.O.O., explains, "CEI is pleased to be selected by CNN to design and integrate its new digital signal infrastructure. The DTV-capable Venus 2001 routing system will help transition the plant away from the existing analog platform and underpins CNN's goal to migrate to new production technology, post production systems and eventually HDTV applications."
CEI will coordinate the integration project closely with CNN Washington bureau's active production schedule with the completion of the SDI routing system expected by June 2001. CNN Washington's news operation and signals are shared and integrated with CNN's other major news facilities in New York and Atlanta, Georgia.
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Fox Sports Net (FSN) Creates The Fox Video Network (FVN), Using TCP/IP & ATM, To Integrate Its Regional Sports Channels
Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Designs, Engineers, and Integrates the FSN Peer-to-Peer, National Network with Sophisticated Software Management Tools
Los Angeles, CA -- March 30, 2001 How Will Fox Sports Net continue to successfully grow the viewing audiences for its sports programming? FSN has tapped the potential of a new technical platform by creating a national contribution network built around TCP/IP networking techniques and protocols. FSN's main facilities in Los Angeles and Houston are now integrated with its 21 regional sports channels around the country using the first customer-controlled ATM/Switched Virtual Circuit (SVC)-based broadcast system in the U.S.
Jerry Gepner, Executive Vice President FSN Operations & Engineering, states, "This cost effective IP network approach supports the rollout of new national programming centered around The Regional Sports Report and it enables each regional sports channel to share and create additional programs tailored to each individual market. CEI developed a versatile, leading edge transmission design that enabled our successful launch with a design-to-deployment cycle of only six months!"
Lawrence Brody, CEI President and C.E.O., explains, "The ATM-TCP/IP network solution works because the compliment of communications technologies has matured enough to support the fault tolerant requirements of broadcast television coupled with the emerging advantages of aggregate-bandwidth pricing. A key challenge involved the engineering of in-house network management controls to monitor and switch the widely dispersed technology systems and direct extensive real-time feedback into easily identifiable network-health screen displays and status maps."
The Network Operations Center (NOC) in Los Angeles monitors and maintains control over the performance of the national network though each regional location can initiate and exchange video files in a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint scenario. The flexible peer-to-peer communications arrangement enables the FSN partners to share programming material without direct and constant intervention of the NOC staff. Sophisticated software alarms and FVN real-time displays are incorporated into a custom, virtual monitor wall that provides program and network status conditions.
The Fox Sports Net new contribution network has become a reliable and cost effective addition for transmission and communication services. As FSN's experience grows, it is anticipated that additional Fox signals and programming will migrate to the FVN such as event backhaul and other more critical content distribution tasks.
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CEI Integrates Philip’s New 720p/1080i LDK6000 HDTV Camera Into DARPA’s Next Generation Internet Program
Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) is Delivering An HDTV Solution to Test Video Over IP Networks
Newington, VA -- January 11, 2001 -- The latest high definition camera from Philips is the heart of an HDTV system that will be used to test, measure, and evaluate HDTV video transmitted over high speed TCP/IP networks. The LDK 6000 High Definition camera system will support a federally funded research effort conducted by the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI). The integrated HDTV system provided by CEI will test and evaluate the transmission of digital television (DTV) signals across local and wide area networks utilizing TCP/IP protocols.
Ladan Ghari, ISI Researcher, states, " Our project for DARPA will research media transport, video quality, bandwidth usage, and other issues associated with the transmission of DTV video images over IP networks. CEI’s Philips LDK6000-based solution provides a flexible means to evaluate a wide variety of digital television signals and IP network scenarios for our group communications studies.”
John Wesley Nash, CEI’s Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, remarked, “The new LDK6000, equipped with third generation sensors, can generate stunning digital pictures out of the 9.2 Million pixel CCDs. In the forthcoming tests, the 720p/1080I switchable camera system will deliver a full range of signals from truly native interlaced to progressive HDTV signals as well as high-quality SDTV signals.”
The ISI tests are expected to last two years and are part of a larger effort by the federal research community to evaluate HDTV-based, next generation communications applications over high speed IP networks. CEI is incorporating D/A conversion, A/D conversion, HDTV decoder, multi-standard display systems, and ATSC/8VSB receivers and decoders to build ISI’s DTV lab system.
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