Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Adds Equipment Repair Services To Its Turnkey Design, Engineering & Integration Capabilities
Colin Parkhill Joins CEI As Service Engineer To Provide Technical Repair and Maintenance Services To Broadcasters, Post Production Facilities and Other A/V Clients
Newington, Virginia -- September 1, 1999 -- CEI, a full service broadcast engineering firm, has expanded its service capabilities to include broadcast equipment maintenance and repair to complement its growing broadcast system integration business.
John Wesley Nash, Vice President of Engineering, announced, "We are extremely pleased to have Colin Parkhill provide comprehensive repair services to an expanding list of clients. Colin, a broadcast veteran with over 30 years experience, possesses extensive expertise for on-site and/or shop repair services including: calibration and preventive maintenance of display devices, VTRs, projectors, audio mixers, switchers, camcorders, and other broadcast related equipment."
Colin Parkhill's previous employment was at King Video Associates, Inc., Springfield, Virginia, where he successfully built the field maintenance and repair services business. Colin's broadcast industry experience includes technical positions with Sony, Phillips BTS, RCA, and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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Communications Engineering, Inc.(CEI) To Build New Television Origination Center For Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc.
Rainbow Selects CEI To Design, Engineer, and Integrate the Network Origination and Satellite Uplink Facility at Bethpage, Long Island, New York
Floral Park, New York - June 30, 1999 - Rainbow Network Communications (RNC) has initiated the comprehensive design of its new origination facility for sports, movies, and news programming channels including Madison Square Garden Productions (MSG™), American Movie Classics™, and Bravo™ with the assistance of CEI, a leading broadcast television engineering firm headquartered in Newington, Virginia. The existing RNC technical operation, located in Floral Park and the Belmont Racetrack, will be consolidated into a 56,000 sq. ft. Bethpage, New York location.
Steve Pontillo, RNC Vice President of Engineering and Technical Services, announced, "We are excited about the chance to move forward with the latest technology solutions for our new origination facility. The RNC operation has grown tremendously over the last 15 years and is in the midst of a far-reaching industry transition. We are pleased to incorporate CEI's engineering expertise in creating a state-of-the-art television facility that can take advantage of the enormous television opportunities that lie ahead".
John Wesley Nash, CEI Vice President of Engineering, describes, "While currently producing more television per square inch than can be imagined, RNC's expanded and complex multi-channel operation will drive the new facility's design to support its diverse client origination services and procedures. Technical infrastructure considerations and the need for 'future flexibility' are other important factors guiding the design process. The building, formerly an aircraft hanger, will undergo major modifications to prepare the spaces for broadcast use".
To date, CEI's design and engineering services for the RNC project have included:
The RNC/CEI team is evaluating and designing systems based on the latest technology solutions for possible incorporation into the new plant operation. MPEG-2 servers, under automation control, will play a prominent role in the facility design along with an HDTV-ready signal infrastructure and 16 X 9 ready monitoring systems. The RNC schedule proposes a network facility completion date in late 1999 followed by the satellite operation transition to Bethpage in 2000.
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The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Network Origination Facility Upgrades With New Servers, Automation, and HDTV Capability
Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI ) Engineers Hewlett Packard/Louth Automation Solution and High Definition Program Origination Systems
Alexandria, Virginia -- April 9, 1999 -- CEI has transformed PBS's program distribution plant with a new digital signal infrastructure and an automated, multichannel solution. The Louth automation systems control every aspect of the eight PBS simultaneous feeds by transmitting program files stored on HP servers in concert with a multitude of other plant signals and devices.
John Tollefson, PBS Vice President and Chief Technology officer, explains, "We are delighted that CEI completed the comprehensive upgrade in time for PBS's aggressive HDTV launch. Our new automated, multichannel operation works great and can support up to 24 channels which will allow us to develop new media services for our 349 member stations and their nearly 100 million viewers".
Lawrence S. Brody, CEI President, describes, "The new solution was built for the long term and utilizes a 360Mb capable infrastructure designed and installed by CEI. The PBS origination services will continue to evolve and their broadcast facility must be able to accommodate the latest products and techniques".
PBS's latest adoption of new digital technologies builds upon the 1994 digital upgrade that created a digital composite signal plant with Phillips router and multi-channel master control switching systems. The addition of serial digital component distribution, A/D and D/A converters, and 601 monitoring established the foundation for the latest enhancements. A Louth Automation system was selected to control the extensive list of PBS plant devices and plays a critical role in the new PBS operation. HP MediaStream™ servers with 4:2:2 MPEG-2 encoders offer flexible bit-rate control.
PBS initiated high definition transmission last November in order to give member station and viewers early access to HDTV programs. The CEI designed and integrated solution uses D-5 machines connected through an NVision 1.5Gb/s HD router. The HD program material is encoded for air at PBS before being stored on a Sencore 19.39Mb server. Besides HD material, existing 601 programming is upconverted by a Snell & Wilcox HD5100 and then transmitted through the Scientific Atlanta PowerVu™ systems. The Sencore server then records the 19.39 programs for re-transmission, a common scenario given that PBS member station schedules' span 7 timezones. All system operations are under full automation control.
Additional information about digital television activities of PBS and its member stations can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/digitaltv/.
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Fox Sports Networks (FSN) Selects Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) To Build Network Origination Facilities
CEI to Deliver Turnkey Design Services and Integrate New Server-based FSN Plants In Los Angeles and Houston
Los Angeles, CA -- April 2, 1999 -- Fox-Sports Networks has engaged Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) to design, engineer and build comprehensive program origination capabilities at their Los Angeles and Houston locations. The Fox vision aims beyond the usual analog-to-digital facility transition with an innovative design for individual plants that can inter-operate and exchange program information with other FSN multichannel origination locations.
As Mark Coleman, FSN Vice President of Technical Operations, explains, "We want to build our infrastructure around the concept of database driven digital content. This requires automation and servers combined with wide area networking (WAN) and software to build an FSN shared repository across multiple facilities for spot program material".
Lawrence S. Brody, President of CEI, says, "The realtime, fast changing, no fault nature of television imposes stringent demands on television operations, systems and the people who make it happen. At FSN each origination location will be designed to give FSN viewers the best television experience, gain operational efficiencies, and support future channel expansion. We are implementing the logical integration of all broadcast operations".
The Fox locations in LA and Houston will incorporate solutions that allow bi-directional digital transfers of commercials and programming. A unified view of the programming assets located on servers and offline storage at each location will be managed by Louth automation systems. Each individual channel's playlist will anticipate and transfer video files between the distributed Hewlett Packard servers and StorageTek offline storage systems.
The new digital infrastructure integrated into the FSN operations supports serial digital component video and multi-channel AES audio. The facilities will be engineered to accommodate the up-to-the minute needs inherent in FSN's programming channels. Multi-channel control rooms will be designed to shift between live events and server origination with a minimum of personnel involvement. These technical enhancements will bring new procedures into FSN's flow of operations and will be a shift away from its existing manual tape practices.
When completed in late 1999, the new LA and Houston FSN operations will enable future programming channels for its growing base of 62 US million homes. The Houston facility will accommodate up to 20 channels and the Los Angeles plant will support up to 15 channels. The Los Angeles plant serves the Latin American market with 3 sports feeds that reach over 8 million homes. It will also originate the FX channels which broadcast movies and syndicated television programming.
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The CEI Technical Staff Adds Four Engineers To Deliver Turnkey Broadcast Projects
Communications Engineering, Inc. (CEI) Moves To Expanded Newington, VA Facility
Newington, Virginia -- March 25, 1999 -- CEI, a full service broadcast engineering firm, has conducted a national search for engineering expertise to meet the demands of its growing broadcast system integration business.
John Wesley Nash, Vice President of Engineering, announced, "We are extremely proud to attract the services of these talented individuals. The broadcast industry's shrinking technical labor pool presents a challenge to finding the extraordinary expertise necessary to deliver worldclass broadcast solutions. CEI is experiencing unprecedented company growth and has always developed project solutions with our internal engineering talent."
A brief description of the new technical personnel:
Lachlan Murdoch MacNeil, Senior Design Engineer. Mr. MacNeil has over 15 years of experience in broadcast operations, audio/video design, and technical project management. His Engineer In Charge (EIC) experience has included network news programming for ABC (Nightline, World News Tonight, This Week, 20/20), professional sports (The World Cup, Orioles baseball), music & concert venues (Grateful Dead, Janet Jackson, Bob Dylan), and national awards shows (Grammy Awards, MTV-Video Music Awards, MTV-Movie Awards).
Bob Bieberdorf, Senior Design Engineer. Mr Bieberdorf brings over 18 years of broadcast industry experience involving all aspects of technical facility design, technical maintenance, and post production operations. His previous position since 1995 was Chief Engineer of Tribeca Henniger Editing Tools, Los Angeles, CA, where he designed technical systems and managed the engineering department. As Chief Engineer of Tribeca Henniger Editing Tools Mr Bieberdorf was involved with over 100 television and film projects for major studios such as Miramax, Disney, Universal, Fox, Paramount, and Dreamworks SKG as well as independent production companies.
Jefferey Steele, Senior Design Engineer. Mr. Steele has over 24 years of broadcast industry experience encompassing the management of broadcast technical facilities, systems design, engineering, and preventive maintenance. Prior to joining CEI Mr. Steele was Chief Engineer at Atlantic Video, Washington DC, for six years where he managed the engineering personnel and broadcast operations including production, post production, master control, and transmission.
Phillip Reiners, Assistant Design Engineer. Mr. Reiners has over 21 years of engineering experience in communications systems. His electrical engineering background includes systems design and turnkey implementation of radio stations and audio/video systems. He has extensive expertise in the areas of digital encryption and electronic surveillance for both commercial and military applications.
To date, for 1999, CEI is engaged with broadcast design efforts for Fox Sports Net, WETA-TV, WHYY-TV, PBS, and Rainbow Network Communications, to name a few. In late 1998, CEI expanded its facility to a new 28,000 sq. ft. location to meet the demands of its growing design, engineering and integration projects.
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