Speaker: Jim Boston, author
 

Date & Time: Thursday, 24 July 2003

Meeting organizer: Gary Youngs, SMPTEsf Manager [gyoungs(at)covad.net]
 

Program:

This month's meeting is one we'll be talking about for some time. TV stations are some of our most popular SMPTE-SF meeting venues and we've got some great gear to show! TV remotes -- "OB" or "outside broadcasts" if you're in the British Commonwealth -- offer video engineers some of the most interesting technical challenges in the business, while also making for some of the funniest and strangest stories we've ever heard!

Most remotes, including live sports and special events, are done from trucks or customized portable equipment packs. These wonderful pieces of remote gear come in many sizes and configurations, from a huge, multi-unit, high-definition Olympic truck to a one-piece satellite flyaway pack for a CNN guy out in the desert. All of this remote gear creates essential material to "feed the beast" -- that insatiable appetite for 24/7 programming of over-the-air TV, cable, and satellite.

One of TV engineering's best-known authors, the Bay Area's own Jim Boston, has just completed a great book on the world of remote broadcasting, TV on Wheels, The Story of Remote Television Production [see the book at www.DTVengineering.com]. Jim will share his interesting experiences in the field and explain the state of the art and the future of remote broadcast technology.

After Jim's presentation comes "The Toy Show"! We'll have the chance to look into what makes one of these big chunks of technology tick. We have an outstanding example of a state-of-the-art production truck, owned and operated by Magnetic Image Video [www.mivideo.com], for you to climb aboard and take a look at its nuts, bolts, and BNCs. Larry Kenworthy and Mark Shattuck will be on hand to talk about the development and design of their truck and its gear, and to answer your questions about "TV on the road".

Jim Boston, BSEE, grew up in the South Bay in a television family. His father, Barney, was one of the early leaders in the development of remote broadcast technology and its use in the field. While Jim isn't doing research for his books, he works as a Senior Director for SignaSys in San Jose, one of the leading high-end system integrators. He's designed and built remote trucks, been a design engineer for CMX, and a sustaining engineer at Sony supporting cameras, VTRs, servers, and routers. Jim is a frequent writer for Broadcast Engineering magazine and he wrote the DTV Survival Guide, published by McGraw-Hill Professional.

We'd like to thank Ed Cosci, Ken Manley, and the staff at KTVU Engineering [www.ktvu.com] for generously hosting our July meeting.

Welcome:

SMPTEsf  welcomes members and friends to attend this meeting without charge. Reservations are not required for this meeting.

Location:

KTVU-TV Engineering
2 Jack London Square (Embarcadero @ Madison St.)
Oakland, CA 94607
[ample free parking; see below for map and directions]
 
 

KTVU, 2 Jack London Sq.

Map Click on "map" to browse and get detailed directions from your location

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