KNBC’s New Digs: ‘High-Tech, Light, Bright’

When KNBC Los Angeles began broadcasting last month from NBCUniversal’s new West Coast headquarters, there was something different about the look of its newscasts, something that even some NBC executives back East couldn’t quite put their finger on, says Richard Westcott, VP of engineering and technical operations at the owned station.

Certainly the 27 monitors on set, the enhanced weather graphics, the interactive touch-screen technology and LED studio lighting created a distinctive look. But the newscasts’ special something was their full use of the video canvas.

“We are one of the first major market stations to go completely 16:9,” says Westcott. “We no longer do 4:3 center cut in our local news shows.”

The seven-day forecast graphic now has plenty of room, crawls go from one side of the screen to the other and the station bug is positioned way out on the lower right side. “It’s HDTV the way it was meant to be,” Westcott says.

KNBC is hoping that the move into new digs and the changes it brings — in the on-air look and in the way things are done — will help rejuvenate the station and boost its standing among the No. 2 market’s 5.7 million TV homes.

“We have moved into a very bright future,” says Steve Carlston, president and general manager of KNBC. “This high-tech, light, bright facility is energizing the entire staff. This facility has propelled some of the best newscasts we’ve had since I have been at the station.”

KNBC made the move into the new NBCUniversal headquarters in late January and began broadcasting from it just before the start the NBC’s Olympics coverage on Feb. 2.

Located on the Universal Studio lot in Universal City, Calif., the headquarters comprises 150,000 square feet in two, three-story buildings — one to the east, housing KNBC’s newsroom and studios and eventually KVEA, a companion Telemundo station, and the other to the west with the Los Angeles bureaus of NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC.

Working with system integrator Diversified Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., KNBC designed its new newsroom to improve workflow and facilitate communication among managers, reporters, producers and technical staff, Westcott says.

In practice, that meant placing the station’s ingest area in the newsroom with a sliding glass door between the newsroom and the assignment desk. The door can be opened to allow everyone to talk freely during breaking news events and closed when quiet is required to work.

“There are no more hidden people who didn’t get the word in time,” says Westcott. “The desk can speak up and everybody knows what is going on.”

In the newsroom, reporters and producers write scripts and edit video using Avid iNews and the Grass Valley Stratus nonlinear media production system. The station’s Web team, which also is located in the newsroom, has its own video router panel so that it can select whatever content it needs for the website and other digital platforms, Westcott says.

On the news set, the station has deployed 27 monitors tied to Vista Spyder frames that in turn are under the control of the Ross OverDrive system in the control room. The station has created three different scenes for the monitors — morning, evening and breaking news — for different newscasts. It also had a scene for the Sochi Olympics.

KNBC has deployed MacTech, an LED studio lighting system created in partnership with Universal. The lighting system gives the station complete freedom in selecting the color temperature of the LED lights. The station has chosen 4,800 degrees Kelvin for the set, which looks bluish to the eye when standing on the set, but “really pops” and works well with the numerous monitors on the set, Wescott says.

“We love this set. We can change the mood of the set in seconds. We can actually take the RGB lighting and turn it red for more of an emergency or turn it back to blue for our normal look,” he adds.

The heart of the primary control room is a Ross Video Ross Vision 4 production switcher paired with the company’s OverDrive automation control system. While the switcher is among the largest available from Ross, KNBC elected a compact control panel to conserve space. The Sony 1500 series HD cameras in the news studio are under the control of the Ross Video CamBot camera robotics system.

For news graphics, the station creates and plays out content with Chyron Mosaic, and manages its workflow with the Chyron CAMIO 3 and CAMIO 3 DR standby backup system.

Audio in the main control room is mixed with a 96-input Calrec Artemis audio console. Audio signal transport is almost entirely MADI with the exception of analog mic inputs, Westcott says. The station’s smaller control room relies on a Yamaha DM1000 digital mixer equipped with the MADI option.

To route signals around the new facility, KNBC deployed the Miranda NV9000 router with 1,054 crosspoints in and out. Currently, only 70% of the router is populated, leaving room to grow, Westcott says.

Westcott is proud that KNBC has switched to full-blown 16:9 production. But, he notes, the station is not abandoning its many viewers who still watch on 4:3 sets. It’s added an active format description flag so they can watch the 16:9 newscasts in letterbox, he says.

The move gives KNBC a fresh technical start, free of the grip of old cable and aging systems, says Westcott. “You know, the Burbank studios had years and years of buildup that I like to call engineering scar tissue.”

And it has also put the station in a position to meet future production demands, adds Carlston. “Our facility is all set up for 4K in the future, if that becomes a requirement. It is beautifully laid out and easily changeable.”

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