City of Clearwater Enhances Public Exposure

With Telemetrics Camera Robotics and Control Systems.

Employs Telemetrics Systems for Studio & Mobile Production Applications.

 

By Shawn Stafford

Television Production Supervisor for the City of Clearwater, FL

 

 

The City of Clearwater, Florida is a firm believer in the power of technology and its ability to reach out to the neighborhoods it serves with that technology. When city officials decided to form their own 24-hour cable television channel in 1995 to supply community programming to its residents, C-VIEW 15 was born. Its mission is to serve and inform the residents of Clearwater by providing accurate and current information about the policies, services and activities of Clearwater government. This allows for a forum to discuss significant public issues and to stimulate Clearwater resident to empower themselves in local government and public issue in order to make more informed decisions.  In addition C-VIEW 15 helps to market the City of Clearwater as a great place to live, work, play and do business inside the our city limits.

 

C-VIEW 15 maintains three production facilities comprised of two studios and one mobile command unit. Our facilities are equipped with Sony remote cameras and Panasonic studio cameras accompanied by Fuji lenses. C-VIEW encodes all programming to a D.CO automation system. The City Hall facility is equipped with a Telemetrics Camera Robotics System, which allows a single operator to control all camera movements from a single control location. In addition to providing an easy to operate multi-camera platform, The Telemetrics Camera Robotics Systems provides C-VIEW with a high-degree of cost-efficiency and reliability.

 

We went with the Telemetrics because they offer a comprehensive line of camera robotic system products. The line includes serial controlled pan/tilt mechanisms, camera trolley and elevator systems with relatively simple control panels with modem access, and accessories with advanced control software that can be easily customized for specific applications.

 

When we were looking to outfit our new Mobile Command Center with a camera control system, we did not even look beyond the Telemetrics’ state of the art coax camera control system. We take the mobile command center into a neighborhood and conduct town hall meetings with citizens and city officials to discuss neighborhood issues. The Telemetrics Coax Control Units are used the long cable runs to facilities where the meetings and other events are held. I was amazed with Telemetrics comprehensive re-mote camera set-up and adjustment capabilities, video outputs, return video, microphone, audio, intercom, IFB, program audio, tally, and power to each camera all through a single RG-59 cable. The system incorporates genlock at the base station and provides for easy timing adjustments for different cable lengths. This enables us to use our high performance ENG cameras for studio and EFP applications. Taking in account Telemetrics reputation combined with the reliability we’ve experienced with our existing Telemetrics equipment; the decision to outfit our facilities with such technology was an easy one.