Television City Studios (TVCS) in Los Angeles is a television production and broadcasting complex that opened in 1952. Some legendary shows have taped at Television City over the years, including The Carol Burnett Show, The Price Is Right, and All in the Family. The Price Is Right still broadcasts from there today, as do many other shows — like The Young and the Restless, The Late Late Show, and American Idol.
Challenge
Among the many facilities at Television City are eight soundstages and a digital studio. Like so many others in the broadcast industry, Television City is migrating toward media over IP because of the technology’s scalability, flexibility in managing content, ability to lower costs, and necessity in an all-digital infrastructure, among other reasons.
Solution
After exploring various alternatives, Television City opted for a pair of Artel Quarra PTP 10 Gbps Ethernet switches as the basis for its new PTP solution.
“We chose Artel’s Quarra 10G for several reasons,” said Jerzy Gorczyca, vice president of TVCS engineering. “For one thing, Artel gave us loaner units so we could evaluate the device before moving forward with a purchase. During that time, we found that the accuracy was spot-on, and the web browser interface made for easy configuration. Also, Artel’s engineers were readily available with complementary technical support whenever we needed it. Another determining factor was that Artel will work with us as our needs continue to evolve.”
In the Television City workflow, two Quarra 10G switches serve as boundary clocks in the PTP distribution network. The boundary clocks support equipment in two studios in a redundant fashion (blue and red networks) and are referenced by Evertz 5700MSC-IP grand master clocks. The Quarra switches take PTP messages from the grand master clocks and pass them to other timing distribution
switches located in different studios.
Results
With Artel’s Quarra 10G PTP switches give Television City Studios:
- The ability to support boundary clock or transparent clock mode.
- Accurate holdover when the PTP grand master is lost.
- Less than 30-second booting time, the fastest booting time in the industry.
- Nanosecond timing accuracy due to a design that uses accurate temperature and voltage controlled, high-precision crystal oscillators.
As a result, Television City Studios can enjoy all the benefits of media over IP while assuring precise timing during all of its broadcasts. Signals are synchronized within nanoseconds so that TVCS can avoid the broadcast interruptions, unwanted noise, lip sync misalignment, and audio latency that arise from errors in timing. And audiences get the best possible viewing experience.
Having the high precision and high stability PTP distribution system gives us the full confidence that any potential packet loss in the SMPTE ST 2110 distribution or any system intermittent instabilities are rather resulting from some potential flaws in these systems and not caused by the PTP reference.
Two fiber ports could be useful for providing reference over the fiber to a distant studio in our complex.
